


Land of the Free

by ionthesparrow



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Florida Panthers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 06:55:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4253694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ionthesparrow/pseuds/ionthesparrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Minnesota to Florida, by way of Texas. </p><p>Or:</p><p>How 2612 miles, 8 years, 4 leagues, 3 brothers, and 2 Nicks make a man</p>
            </blockquote>





	Land of the Free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thehandsoftime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehandsoftime/gifts).



> ** There's now an awesome playlist to go with this story, courtesy of [commedhabitude](http://archiveofourown.org/users/commedhabitude/pseuds/commedhabitude). Check it out [here](http://8tracks.com/commedhabitude/land-of-the-free#)! <3 <3 <3
> 
> This fic was written for the Team USA Fic Exchange, and first of all a tremendous thank you to the organizers for getting this whole thing up and running <3
> 
> More specifically, this fic was written for thehandsoftime, who provided a bevy of fantastic prompts. Her knowledge and passion about hockey made this story a joy to write.
> 
> I have now cheered _against_ Kyle Rau in two separate leagues (go Union) in his young career, so I suppose it was inevitable I’d end up writing about him one day. If you get even a fraction of the entertainment reading this that I found in writing it, I will be thrilled. For those unfamiliar, there are lots of things to love (and hate) about Kyle Rau, but all you really need to know for this story is summed up right here in [this vine](https://twitter.com/GopherHockey/status/497416649478529024). (more links if you’re interested in the end notes)
> 
> **Content warnings:** The only notice on this one is that it depicts anxiety and the physical symptoms of anxiety (although, as always, if after reading you feel inadequately warned about something, please let me know either in comments or email (ionthesparrow12 at gmail) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/ionthesparrow12)).
> 
> Finally, this fic took a village. Many thanks to bessyboo for helping me write about places I had never been, to anna_unfolding for all her encouragement and insight in looking over the very first and the very last versions of this, to pressdbtwnpages for demanding coherency, and of course to empathapathique, for her devastating ability to make me question everything ever. All remaining mistakes are my own.

* * *

 

1\. Then (Winter in Minnesota) 

In the waning months of 2008, in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, it was good and right and proper to be in love with Nick Leddy. 

Leddy was the reason for the thick swath of black-coated scouts at their games. Leddy was the reason those scouts had to jostle for elbow room, because the bleachers were already so packed with everyone else that wanted to see him play, more people trying to cram in to see high school hockey than there had been in years – and this was Minnesota, so the bar was pretty high. 

Leddy was the reason they hadn’t lost yet that season. Not once. 

The whole student body adored him. The teachers all went out their way to smile at him. Even Coach got a soft, sort of fond look when he watched Leddy skate. Everyone – from the radio guy to the cheerleaders to the hockey moms to the men who spent every night drinking at Tom Reid’s – everyone was a least a little bit in love. 

Kyle has vivid memories that he is 100% not making up or exaggerating, of the students parting in the hallways before Leddy, like the buoyant, salty waters of the Red Sea. 

Leddy seemed perfect – he could do anything he wanted on the ice, and he always knew what to say, and everything seemed to come so easy. Some days just being near him was enough to make Kyle warm all over, and thank whatever twist of fate had put them in the same town, on the same team, and made him want to work as hard as he possibly could to make sure he’d stay close enough to bask in that reflected glow. 

But Kyle, #7, center-and-sometimes-wing, was not an anonymous member of these adoring masses. He had a front row seat, and he had watched Leddy with careful, devoted attention for years. And so he knew better than anybody – except maybe Curt, who as Leddy’s D partner had the job of literally watching out for Leddy’s mistakes – that Leddy wasn’t perfect. 

And some days, it felt like the worst thing in the whole world. The way Leddy walked around, smiling like some benevolent monarch. Like it was all his due, and like it had never occurred to him that what he offered might not be good enough. Some days it made something twist in the pit of Kyle’s stomach, something molten hot and jagged like sawgrass. 

You would think all that would make Kyle immune, but it didn’t. If anything, it was the opposite. Kyle loved Leddy with a full-throttle, choking sort of love. The kind of love that snuck up on you at the worst times, made your tongue freeze up inside your mouth, and your skin buzz. The kind of intense and abasing emotion that made knights prostrate themselves before kings and swear fealty. 

There were definitely moments Kyle would have thrown himself to the ground in front of Leddy: in the locker room when Leddy’s cool confidence was like water in a desert. When he stood, and on blind instinct, nineteen boys rose with him. But even if Kyle had done something like that, it’s unclear whether Leddy would have noticed. 

Leddy smiled at Kyle, but Leddy smiled at everyone. There was nothing special in it. 

 

 

Sometimes, behind a locked door, Kyle looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. He swiped away the condensation and looked at his body: pale in front of the wild, floral eruption of his mother’s wallpaper choices. At sixteen, he was circling around 160 and just shy of 5’8, numbers that he knew because they got marked down at the beginning of every week during the season. Numbers that weren’t changing much lately. And Kyle was starting to think he may as well scratch _grow as tall as at least one of his brothers_ off his list of goals. 

Even at sixteen, it wasn’t hard to imagine what scouts were saying about him, if they were saying anything at all: talented. But undersized. It was stupid to get pissed off about it. The scouts got to look at him and judge. That was their job. Kyle just had to be good enough to make them pay attention to him anyway, despite his publically viewable shortcomings. 

Kyle frowned and re-cleared the glass. He glanced at the door, re-checking to make sure it was locked, and then he touched his own skin – still flushed, still damp – lay his fingers across his hip, just where the flesh dipped and became smooth. He looked not down, but at the reflection in the mirror, at the looking-glass world where it could be someone else’s hand holding him. He thought about whose touch he wanted there. Pulse going loud in his ears, he thought about what that meant. And if he loved Nick Leddy in the right way, or the wrong way. 

After all, not all of his shortcomings were visible from the outside. 

Thinking about it made his head hurt. Kyle closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the glass. 

Someone tried the door handle. “Kyle, what the fuck are you _doing_ in there?” Curt banged on the door for emphasis. “Come _on_.” 

Kyle rolled his eyes, because this was what happened when you shared the bathroom with your brother. It used to be worse. There used to be four of them, but Chad was in Colorado – busy being, if you believed Chad, the best thing to hit the state since Forsberg – and some idiot let Matt into med school, which just left Kyle and Curt, matched set – 

“What the _fuck –_ ” 

Curt’s voice was cut off by a sharp yell from downstairs about language, and Kyle hustled to grab a towel and get out before his mom really got pissed. He looked at himself one last time in the mirror, to make sure nothing he was thinking about showed on his face. 

Gotta keep your game face on. Gotta keep your head above water. 

 

 

Kyle _worked_. Which was what you did, when you’ve got a list of goals to achieve, and you were starting with a deficit. 

Kyle had lots of little goals, sure – get Nick Leddy to notice him. Impress Nick Leddy. Beat Curt at Starcraft. But all the major ones were hockey related. And it was a pretty short list: 

Be better than Matt Rau  
Be better than Chad Rau  
Be better than Curt Rau  
Be at least as good as Nick Leddy 

His dad said, “No one’s going to hand you anything.” 

Which Kyle knew. But there weren’t really any clear guidelines for what was good enough. So Kyle made up complicated sets of rules for himself: if he skated for ten minutes longer than he did the day before, if got an A in calculus, if he made Leddy laugh in practice, those were all points in the good side of the ledger, and could be used to offset points in the bad side of the ledger (the missed pass that should have been a goal. The assignment he forgot about. The fact that he really shouldn’t be thinking about Leddy this much, anyway). 

The pressure never let up, not really. It was enough to drive him exhausted into bed every night. And it was enough to keep him awake and staring at the ceiling long after he should have been asleep. The feelings that set in those sleepless nights got to be so familiar that Kyle could almost map their progression: first would be that prickling, tingling climb of adrenaline under his skin. And then his heart rate ticked up, and a tight ache like a stone would form in his throat. When it was really bad, it felt like his whole chest was seizing up, and it left Kyle curled in a ball, trying desperately to just breathe. 

The most frustrating part was that nobody really seemed to notice how much work it all was. Not his parents, who seemed pleased in their mild, cheerful way no matter how Kyle did. Not Matt, who made it clear he thought he was above their stupid hockey arms race, and definitely not Chad. Chad, who only called when he’d had a multipoint night. Chad, who kept moving the bar on what was _good enough_. Chad, who worst of all, had left. 

Curt – Curt was locked in the same rat race Kyle was. They used to be virtually identical, and they were still so much the same, but Curt he couldn’t talk to because Curt would see right through him, and it was only a couple years ago that Kyle had realized, with a strange, sinking sensation, that there were things about him he didn’t want Curt to know. 

Leddy sometimes noticed how hard he worked, and that was good. 

“You’re a fuckin’ beast, Rau,” Leddy said, when Kyle toughed it out in front of the net long enough to bang one in. Or when Leddy picked his AP physics textbook up, holding it by one corner, and one skeptical eyebrow raised. “Really?” 

Kyle shrugged, helpless in the face of that undivided attention. 

Leddy dropped the book and put his arm around Kyle. “That’s my little genius.” He gave Kyle a sharp shake and grinned down at him. 

That made up for a lot. 

 

 

If Leddy sometimes noticed Kyle, if Leddy sometimes appreciated Kyle – and that wasn’t too much of a stretch to say, at least Kyle didn’t think it was – then it was very much with an air of bemusement. Leddy, of course, was a senior, which made him two years older and approximately a million times cooler than Kyle. He looked at Kyle the way you might look at a project for art class that you’d initially been highly skeptical of, but had turned out better than expected. 

On his best days, Kyle thought, Leddy was proud of him. 

That was the extent of it, though. Leddy wasn’t – he didn’t – it was like, despite Kyle’s aspirations, Leddy was always going to be _here_ , and then a couple notches lower, that’s where Kyle was going to be. Their positions, their order, was never in question. 

But if Leddy appreciated Kyle, then Leddy _admired_ Nick Bjugstad. 

Leddy had once dragged Kyle to one of Bjugstad’s Elite League games, one that none of their teammates were even playing in. He pointed at Bjugstad, from where they were, way up in the stands, and said, “That’s the guy. That’s the guy who told the NDP to go fuck themselves.” He paused. “Well. Not quite in those words.” 

Leddy watched him, with meticulous undivided concentration, the whole game. 

This, Kyle figured, was as a good a reason as any to hate Nick Bjugstad. 

He added, _Be better than Nick Bjugstad_ to the list. 

 

 

Leddy didn’t hate Bjugstad. Leddy fucking loved Nick Bjugstad. Specifically, playing against Nick Bjugstad. Leddy loved trying to hit Nick Bjugstad. Leddy loved going into the corner with Bjugstad. Leddy loved beating him, and Kyle was pretty sure Leddy even loved getting beat by Nick Bjugstad, because it was all right there on his face. 

Games against Blaine, Leddy lit up, got this sharp, bright smile – even on the bench. Even in the locker room before the game started. His leg bouncing in an incessant rhythm. His eyes fixed just over the coach’s shoulder, like he couldn’t wait to get out on the ice. 

They were pretty fucking impressive to watch. When Bjugstad nabbed the puck, he would just be _gone_ , and it was only ever Leddy that could stay with him. Leddy dancing just in front of him, darting in with a poke check that was barely on the legal side of tripping. 

“Mother _fucker._ ” Bjugstad curled up ice, already re-gathering. 

“Oh, where’s the nice boy now?” Leddy called. 

They’d go back at it the very next shift, furious and brutal, but both of them would leave the ice smiling. 

Afterwards, Bjugstad said, “Good game.” 

“Yeah,” Leddy grinned. “I liked the part where we won.” 

Bjugstad snorted out a short laugh and shook his head. “You still thinking the U of M?” 

Leddy’s grin went a little wider. “Yeah. What’s it to you?” 

Bjugstad laughed again, and then looked down at the ice, and then around like he was checking to make sure no one else was listening, eyes sliding right past Kyle like he wasn’t even there. “Maybe,” he said, “I’m thinking it’d be nice to not have to play against you for once.” 

“Bjugsy,” Leddy said, in this delighted tone, like Bjugstad had just proposed or something. 

Bjugstad was still red from the game, but Kyle was pretty sure he could see a fresh flush climbing up his neck. “Dick,” he said, dismissive. He shook his head and skated off, one sharp tap to Leddy’s shin pad before he went. 

 

 

In March, Leddy captained them to a State Championship and got named Mr. Hockey, all without breaking a sweat. 

In June, Leddy was drafted sixteenth overall. 

To _Minnesota_. 

To Kyle’s view, Leddy took all of these events in stride, with gracious good cheer, and the appropriate optimism, and seemed not at all concerned that he’d basically just been ordained Minnesota’s next conquering hero. 

In July, USA Hockey announced the team for the U18 Hlinka tournament, and Leddy flipped all at once from his general mode of laid-back cheer to outright excitement. Which was sort of surprising, since it was a tournament he wasn’t even going to be playing in. 

“You and Bjugs?” he said, when Kyle told him. “Oh, man. That’s gonna be epic. I’m jealous.” He shifted over so Kyle could sit down next to him. They were at the gym – home away from home. All their conversations that summer had been layered over with the smell of sweat and disinfectant, and this one was no different. “Me and Pits had such a good time last year. You’ll see. It’s awesome.” Then he turned and looked harder at Kyle. “Rauser. Smile maybe? This is good news.” 

It was, of course, good news. It was an honor. Kyle had been made _very_ clear on that. The man on the phone had sounded like he expected Kyle to fall over himself to thank him for the opportunity to fly halfway across the world and back again to play with strangers. The man on the phone had talked about getting to play against “real competition” which Kyle had taken as a knock on Minnesota hockey, and the rest of the conversation had sort of gone downhill from there. 

Kyle looked down at the ground. “I don’t know. Part of me would rather just stay here and train with you.” 

“Rau,” Leddy said. “Don’t be stupid.” 

Kyle shrugged. “It’s just, like, the NDP didn’t give a fuck about me all last year. And now I’m supposed to jump and be super excited they want me to go to fucking Slovakia?” 

“Yes,” Leddy deadpanned. 

“If they actually thought I was good, why didn’t they talk me about the team, even once, they wouldn’t stop calling you, and – ” 

“Oh, fuck that. You know they’re just a bunch of size queens over there. Anyway, here’s your chance to show ‘em you can play. And you get to play with Bjugs.” 

“Great.” Kyle didn’t roll his eyes at that last part, but it was a close thing. 

Leddy watched him straight-faced for a moment longer and then laughed, clear and bright. “Man. You really don’t like him.” 

Nick Bjugstad was huge, and the last time they played, he’d spent all game blowing past Kyle like he wasn’t even there. He hadn’t always been that much bigger than Kyle, but their freshman year, he’d shot up. And now people talked about Bjugstad like he already played for Minnesota. Or like he was already an NHLer, for that matter. Kyle clenched his jaw shut and shrugged. 

Leddy said, “If you get to know him better, you’ll like him. He’s a good guy. I’m gonna tell him to watch out for you, I’m gonna tell him to keep an eye on you.” 

The very last thing Kyle needed was for Leddy to think of him as a kid who needed minding. Kyle groaned. “God – _don’t_ – ” 

“Gonna have him make sure you don’t spend all your free time studying or something.” Leddy paused, thoughtful. “Although, man, is he ever lame, too.” 

Kyle let that rest for a moment, working a bit of towel between his hands until he finally got up the nerve to say, “If I didn’t go, you could just watch me. Keep an eye on me.” 

A smile crept across Leddy’s face, slow and warm, and the accompanying twist in Kyle’s stomach, the one that always happened when that smile was directed at him, felt like jumping off a train going a million miles per hour. 

“Yeah, well.” Leddy looked away and ground the toe of his sneaker into the rubber mat. “I’m probably mostly gonna be up on campus, anyway.” 

Kyle looked at him. 

“Gonna work out with some of the U of M guys, you know? Get ready.” 

It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it still felt like one. Felt heavy and ugly sitting on Kyle’s chest. And for the first time, Kyle really let himself think about how next fall, Leddy wasn’t going to be there. His throat went tight. 

“Rauser.” Leddy gave his shoulder a gentle shake. “You’re gonna have fun. You’re gonna be great.” 

 

 

If possible, Nick Bjugstad seemed even taller than the last time Kyle saw him. In the airport, matching Team USA jackets on, Kyle felt self-conscious just standing next to him. 

But Nick looked over at him, blond hair falling into his eyes, and said, “Ahoj.” 

When Kyle frowned back, Nick grinned and ducked his head. “It means hello.” 

 

 

Coach Rud put them on a line together, shifting Kyle over to wing to make it work. 

“Listen, Rau,” he said. “You’re not going make it as a center at your size.” There was nothing particularly sympathetic in his voice, but no meanness, either. Just the well-worn cadence of a speech that’s been given many times. 

“Yes, sir,” Kyle said. 

“Make the most of it,” Rud said. “Got nothing to lose at a tourney like this.” 

“Yes, sir,” Kyle said, and congratulated himself on matching Rud’s flat inflection. 

They only skated once – everyone’s legs still stiff and heavy with the miles traveled – before they played Canada in the exhibition opener. They played in front of a smattering of curious local fans and one or two Canada jerseys. The building felt so cavernous it echoed, and Kyle couldn’t stop staring at the foreign banners in the rafters, at the signs in some unknown tongue. He stared at the strangers he was playing with, at the jerseys they were wearing, frozen for a beat of honest wonder that they read: _USA_ , and it was like a second revelation when he looked down and found himself in the same one. 

Canada, for their part, spent most of the first period bitching – about the ice, about the loud, jangly pop that played during stoppages. About the facemasks – 

“Fuck, these fucking birdcages are fucking bullshit,” Gormley called. 

His D partner – Gudbranson – laughed, and then nodded at Kyle. “Bet you American boys are used to ‘em, huh? Gotta keep those faces pretty to take home to mama.” He grinned, showing off a gap in his teeth. 

Kyle looked over at Nick, but Nick was just twirling his stick loosely in his hands, eyes on the ref, waiting for the puck to drop. 

They got their best chance of the night that shift – Nick lighting out across the neutral zone before Canada quite knew what had happened. Kyle put his head down and worked to keep up, and if the sometimes infuriating experience of playing against Nick had taught him anything, it was that Nick was going to drive wide and then get a shot off before anybody was ready. 

Might as well try to be there for the rebound. 

He wasn’t quite fast enough, though. When the puck came free, it skittered to the far side of the net, and Kyle couldn’t quite get there before Gudbranson put him into the boards. “Not today, duster.” And landed a hard push to Kyle’s back to try to keep him down. 

Kyle bounced up pissed. Canada, and its infuriating sense of superiority, could go fuck itself. Kyle’s anger coalesced into a long-favored form of American patriotism: he did a quick check to see which way the refs were facing, and then sent his stick, hard as he could, into Gudbranson’s shin. 

“Son of a – ” Gudbranson sent Kyle to the ice again. 

When Kyle popped up this time, he led with his shoulder. Gudbranson went flailing, although probably more out of surprise than anything else. He recovered fast and grabbed Kyle. Kyle heard the whistle go, shrill and loud and close. 

Gudbranson towered over him, one hand still fisted in Kyle’s jersey. 

Kyle, breathing hard and heart rabbiting in his chest, refused to drop his eyes. 

After a moment, Gudbranson grinned. His hand slowly uncurled, and he skated away. 

Adrenaline crawled across his skin. If he’d been faster, that might have been a goal. If he’d been better, Gudbranson wouldn’t have beaten him out in front of the net. Kyle shivered with a clammy, cold sort of anger. Pissed at himself and pissed at Gudbranson, and pissed that when he looked up he could see Nick drifting nearby, like he’d been waiting to see if Kyle was going to need to be dragged out of trouble. And like if he did, somehow _Nick Bjugstad_ was going to be the guy to do it. 

Kyle rolled his eyes. 

 

 

Canada took the game 6-1, looking lazy about it by the end. 

Kyle walked off the loss in the square outside the arena. There were picnic tables set up on the paving stones with a view of the river. He walked a circuit, and then sat and listened to the babble of foreign language all around him, and watched the water, and tried not feel quite so far from home. 

He wasn’t there long before someone approached, tall enough to throw Kyle into shade. When Kyle turned, there was Nick Bjugstad, blotting out the sun. 

“Hi.” Nick held out a granola bar. “You left before they passed out snacks.” 

Kyle eyed it for a moment, torn between hunger that was quickly announcing itself and the desire to say _no_ just out of spite. Although, even if he wanted to, he couldn’t actually bring himself to tell Nick to fuck off, an inability he blamed on his parents, and Nick’s stupidly sincere face, and the entire state of Minnesota and it’s indoctrination of _nice_. Kyle sighed and took it. “Thanks.” 

Nick interpreted his acceptance of the granola bar as an invitation to sit down. Kyle eyed him, but Nick seemed content to sit in silence and stare out at the water. 

The last time he and Nick played, Kyle’s team had knocked Nick’s out of the state tournament, which, Kyle thought, made this niceness somewhat suspect. Kyle had scored his fair share of the goals in that tournament, and he hadn’t exactly been quiet about celebrating them. Most of Blaine would probably actually have been pretty pleased to see Gudbranson drive Kyle into the ice. And they for sure wouldn’t be bringing him snacks after. 

Nick took a bite of his own granola bar, chewing slowly and methodically, ignoring the crumbs that were falling onto the table’s surface. 

Leddy liked Nick, which meant Nick couldn’t be all bad. Nick hadn’t made any fuss about getting stuck with Kyle for a winger. He hadn’t given Kyle any shit after the game for failing to keep up. And he brought Kyle a granola bar. Kyle was starting to suspect that if anyone was an asshole in this situation, it was him. 

Kyle crumpled the wrapper between his hands, squinted over at Nick, and said, “Sorry I blew that scoring chance in the first – ” 

– just at exactly the same moment Nick said, “Think there’s fish in there?” 

Nick blinked at him, mouth open in surprise. “No – you didn’t – ” He stopped and took a breath. “Now I know where you like to be. I’ll shoot for a better rebound.” He shrugged. “Besides, it was worth it to see you scare the living shit out of Gudbranson.” 

That was one way to put it. “Pretty sure he decided I just wasn’t worth his time.” 

“Pretty sure he decided it wasn’t worth it because you looked scary-pissed. I’ve never seen anybody get up that quick.” 

“That’s – ” Kyle searched for the right words. “A very generous view of the events.” 

Nick grinned, like he could see Kyle’s point, but was too nice to agree with him. 

He kept smiling at Kyle until Kyle gave in and smiled back. Kyle nodded towards the river. “Carp,” he said. “Probably carp.” 

 

 

In their hotel room, Nick Bjugstad talked _a lot_ about the University of Minnesota, and about how he was trying to finish high school next year, a year early. He wasn’t loud, and he never sounded like he was bragging. He just sounded pleased and proud about the idea of going there. “Watching those games, and then getting to play there – it’s a lot, you know?” Nick was lying on his back, hands folded behind his head, and every once in awhile, if a point needed extra emphasis, he would gesture up at the ceiling. “Coach Lucia really gets it. He just – you can tell how much he thinks about the game. And, like – ” 

Nick’s voice had an easy rise and fall. Kyle closed his eyes. 

“ – I mean you know Kremer. And Gardiner. And Budish – from Edina. You remember Budish, right?” 

Kyle smiled, eyes still closed. The Minnesota in Nick’s voice was coming out hard in the names. Four thousand fucking miles away, and the room was still all filled up with Minnesota boys and Minnesota names and Minnesota hockey. 

Nick drifted to a stop. “What?” 

Kyle opened his eyes and looked over. Nick was looking back at him, a somewhat suspicious frown on his face. One of his long legs was propped up, the other sprawled past the end of the bed. He had, at some point, kicked all the covers to the side, and the floor in front of the bed was littered with discarded clothing, just starting to creep over to Kyle’s side of the room. Kyle grinned. “Thinking about how I flew all the way from Minnesota to Slovakia, apparently to hear you talk about Minnesota hockey.” 

“Oh.” Nick colored. “Are you saying – did you want to talk about something else?” 

He was looking at Kyle with a perfectly serious expression, eyebrows raised in a question. Kyle laughed. “Well. We could talk about the Vikings?” 

After a beat, Nick grinned. “The Twins?” 

“Traffic on 494.” 

“Best hotdish.” 

“Oh, good one,” Kyle said. 

Nick laughed. “Okay, okay.” He rolled onto his side, head propped in one hand. “But you can’t blame me for trying to get my sales pitch in.” 

Kyle blinked. “For the U?” 

Nick nodded back at him, looking perfectly serious. 

“Yeah, well.” Kyle fiddled with the edge of the blanket. “They have to want me first.” 

“They’ll want you.” Nick sounded surprised. “Of course they’ll want you.” 

“Maybe.” Despite what Nick might’ve thought, that hadn’t felt like a given. The idea that he’d probably have to make a commitment this season, that this season was when he really had to convince places to want him, settled heavy on his chest. 

Minnesota loomed, of course. Some days, Minnesota seemed like the only possible option. It’s where Leddy was going, and for the last two years following Leddy had meant everything. 

Except here he was thousands of miles away, and the idea of going back and following Leddy also made something in him want to dig his heels in or turn and run in the opposite direction. Which was stupid. Leddy was his friend. And Nick was going there. Which maybe before Kyle wouldn’t have been too excited about, but now Nick was right here, right across the room, being nice to him, and that should make the University of Minnesota seem better, but instead all Kyle could focus on was how much work it would be to keep up. 

What if Minnesota did take him and he couldn’t hack it? What if he washed out? 

Kyle tried to take a breath, but his throat closed hard, and his heart was starting to race. He had a white-knuckled grip on the blanket that he couldn’t quite make himself turn loose. A horrible queasiness was rising in his stomach, because it was one thing when he felt like this in the privacy of his bedroom, but it was quite another to panic with Nick right there, listening, and all of Kyle’s nerves laid bare and visible on the surface of his skin. That made his pulse trip even faster, blood rush hot to his face – 

“You’re good,” Nick said. His voice was quiet. “You are. You’re even better now than you were in the state tournament.” 

Nick was looking right at him, but they just had the lamp on, and the half-shadow made Nick’s face hard to read. The silence in that hanging pause was so quiet Kyle could hear the traffic outside and the ceiling fan overhead, and loud over everything else, the sound of his own heart, pounding in his ears. 

“You work hard and you have good instincts, and you really know where to go,” Nick said. “I like that.” 

Kyle’s breathing slowed, weight on his chest easing. He managed to unclench his hands. Something warm and uncertain joined all the other feelings crawling around under Kyle’s skin. He risked looking over again to see if there was something in Nick’s face to suggest he was joking, but there was nothing but perfect, honest sincerity. Kyle had to look back up at the ceiling to get his voice back. “Thanks.” 

Nick reached over, his hand hesitated for a moment on the switch, and then he turned the lamp off. “Goodnight, Rau.” 

 

 

They put everything together in the bronze medal game. 

Over the course of that week, Kyle figured out how to read where Nick was going based off his shoulders, and even if he wasn’t as fast, he figured out how to meet him there. 

Kyle proved that if he got low enough, no one was going to chase him out from in front of the net. They got a little better each shift. And in that last game, he managed to push the strange, foggy arena, and the drums and the chants out of his head, and he got right where he needed to be for Nick to find him. Right where he needed to be for Nick to catch hold of him after, one arm around him tight. 

 

 

Nick asked for his number, standing at the baggage claim at MSP. “I’m gonna keep bugging you, you know, about the U.” 

“Sure,” Kyle said. 

“And, like, seeing if you want to go do stuff.” 

Kyle grinned. “Sure.” 

“Because I like you.” He said it without a hint of self-consciousness. With just a grin and a tug at the brim of his cap. His eyes caught on one of the cars outside, and he waved, then looked back at Kyle, still smiling. “I have to go.” 

“See you,” Kyle said, because it was about all he could manage, his tongue tied in a knot, and about eight thousand possible different definitions of the word _like_ pinging around his head. 

 

 

Nick texted him all through that fall. When the high school season started, they kept a running point tally. 

_4 points in 1 game. i should get a bonus for that,_ Nick sent. 

Kyle rolled his eyes, answered, _bullshit._

His phone rang almost immediately. Kyle climbed over Curt to get off the couch and headed upstairs. 

“Four points in one game,” Nick said, as soon as he answered. “That definitely ought to count for extra.” 

“Yeah, but it was against Rogers.” Kyle ducked into his room and closed the door behind him. “It shouldn’t count at all.” 

Nick snorted. 

“How’s your shoulder?” The last time they talked, Nick had still been bitching about how he’d been sent into the boards. 

“Better. Mostly. Hey – you’re not going to use this information against me are you?” 

Kyle grinned. “Maybe. I might need the edge.” 

Nick made a skeptical sound. “Good luck with that,” he said. But his voice was fond. “Also – I was, my dad can’t – ” He stopped and took a breath and started again. “My dad’s going to be out of town for the Minnesota-Wisconsin game. And we’re not playing that day, so I was wondering if you would like to go?” His words slowed down at the end, until they were more pause than content. “Maybe get dinner with Leds, after? If he’s game?” 

Kyle bit his lip. He could feel his face going warm. “Yeah. I mean – I’d have to look at our game schedule but, if I can, yeah – ” 

“You aren’t – you don’t have a game.” Nick stumbled, voice embarrassed like he was confessing something. “I looked.” 

There was no reason for this to be so awkward. There was also no reason Kyle should be smiling as hard as he was, so wide it hurt, up at the ceiling of his room. It was just a hockey game after all, and maybe dinner with Leddy. “Well, then, yeah. Yes.” 

“Okay,” Nick said. He sounded pleased. It was easy to hear in his voice. “Well, I should go. Goodnight.” 

Downstairs, his dad looked up when Kyle returned, and did a quick double-take. 

Kyle schooled his features back into a better poker face. “Got invited to go to the Wisconsin game, and then hang out with Leddy, after.” He looked at his dad. “If that’s okay?” 

“Invited by who?” his dad asked. 

“Nick. Bjugstad. You know – from Blaine?” Like there was a chance his dad didn’t know who Nick Bjugstad was. Kyle was twisting his hands over each other, and he made an effort to stop. He waited, but his dad didn’t say anything, and after a moment, even Curt turned away from the TV to watch him, the game show that was blaring suddenly less interesting. 

“It’ll be a bunch of us,” Kyle blurted. He said it without really thinking about why, and without really knowing if that part was true. “And then dinner with Leds, and then home.” The whole conversation had the strange feeling that he was arguing something without really being sure what he was arguing against. 

His dad’s mouth worked twice, before he swallowed. “Well. Have fun.” 

 

 

It felt good to be out in the city. Or, if not the city, at least something different from the ‘burbs. Short days meant it was already dark, but various neon glows spilled out of the bars, and there were already Christmas lights lacing the trees that lined fourth street. It was cold, but a kind of cold Kyle didn’t mind. Clear and sharp. Cold meant hockey, and cold meant it was fine to hew a little bit closer to Nick, as they wove their way through Dinkytown, and again after the game when they stood with their hands jammed down in their pockets, on the sidewalk outside Mariucci, waiting for Leddy to emerge. 

“Nick!” 

Nick turned. The person who called to him wasn’t Leddy, though. There was a man Kyle didn’t recognize walking up to them. Nick blinked, and Kyle watched his face slip into something more composed. He shifted away from Kyle. The man held out his hand. “Ben Harper. It’s been awhile, but we met last fall. In Plymouth.” 

Nick smiled. “Yeah. Detroit, right?” 

Harper grinned, clearly pleased. “That’s right.” He gestured to the buildings around them. “Getting an early start, checking the place out?” 

Nick chuckled, low and forced, although Kyle doubted the scout could tell. “Just here to see a friend play.” 

“Of course, of course. How’s your dad?” 

“He’s – ” Nick paused. Another forced smile. “Great. He’s great.” 

Harper nodded at this like it meant something. His eyes flicked from Nick to Kyle, and then away again. Kyle shifted foot to foot, and managed to be simultaneously irritated that this scout was here bothering Nick, and that he was ignoring Kyle, and that he existed at all. He concocted a vivid fantasy of telling him to _fuck off_ and then had to bite down hard on the inside of his cheek, because that wouldn’t do anyone any good. 

Harper remained oblivious to Kyle’s derision. “So, what’d you think? Lucia look like he’s running something you can work with?” 

As if the scout thought there was some chance Nick would say he wasn’t. Nick’s not an _idiot_ , Kyle wanted to say. He knows what you’re asking. 

Kyle, for his part, had maybe never watched less of a hockey game in his life. He and Nick had spent most of the game trying to read Leddy’s lips and guess what shit he was spouting. Making up increasingly ridiculous possibilities, and the whole time Nick’s knee pressed tight up against his. 

Nick just shook his head. “They won, so. Lucia’s clearly doing something right. I’ll be excited to play however he wants me.” 

Harper grinned, slow. “Good answer, kid. Well, I won’t keep you.” He tipped his head to both of them. 

Nick watched him leave, then looked at Kyle and shrugged. “Sorry.” 

As if the whole exchange was somehow Nick’s fault. Nick’s cheeks were already flushed from the cold; it was impossible to tell if he was red for other reasons. Kyle got mad all over again, for reason he couldn’t quite put into words. 

He was saved from having to figure out what to say by Leddy showing up, freshly showered and buzzing with the win. He threw an arm around both of them. “I’m starving. We need to eat. I need to eat everything.” 

At dinner, Kyle mostly kept quiet. He listened to Leddy talk about camp, and what that was like. And who on the Wild he’d met, all those names rolling easy off his tongue, like it was nothing. Like it was normal. He talked about the Gophers, too, but not as much. 

Nick got all bright and excited when he did. But when Nick started his sentences with, “Next year…” Leddy got quiet and just smiled. And there was something off about it – some tightness in Leddy’s mouth, something in the way his eyes seemed focused just past Nick. It wasn’t anything big, but Kyle had years of practice of watching Leddy’s face. 

He’s not going to be here next year, Kyle realized. He froze, glass of water halfway to his mouth. Between the space of one breath and the next, he went from not knowing to as sure of it as he’d ever been of anything. 

And Nick didn’t know. Nick was too excited to realize, all full of grand plans about what they were going to accomplish. Nick leaned forward, “The team is gonna be so amazing next year.” He looked from Leddy to Kyle, face warm and open. 

Right in that moment, Kyle hated Nick Leddy. 

Kyle made himself smile. He looked at Leddy. 

Leddy looked away. 

 

 

Kyle’s turn came in 2011. 

His turn for everything. His draft. His state championship. His senior year and his Mr Hockey award. Each was its own moment of joy, or at the very least, a momentary reprieve from the fear that whatever it was he was doing, it wasn’t good enough. 

Kyle at eighteen still looked at himself in the mirror. Often in the small hours of the morning when the rest of the household was asleep, and everything was quiet. He counted off the good things he’d done and the points he’d put up in the good side of the ledger. He practiced excuses in his head for questions he was never asked. The face that looked back at him was blank as a lawn after a night of snow. 

He had a lot more practice at that now. When he met his own eyes, he thought, _good for you. You fooled them._

He still didn’t sleep. 

 

 

Fate put the 2011 NHL Draft in the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, so it was familiar walls around him when, with the very last pick of the third round, Florida called his name. It was also familiar walls he stood in front of while the reporters asked him endless questions about what it all _meant._ Asking if it meant more to be drafted here, in the Xcel Center, the place of all Kyle’s other most famous moments. 

(All Kyle’s most famous moments boiled down to this: on the outside, looking like a hero. On the inside, the most concentrated desperation he has ever known. He didn’t say that part out loud). 

But mostly what Kyle remembers about that day, is that they kept asking about Florida. What he knew about Florida. The grand total of what Kyle knew about Florida could be summed up in one name. Florida was where Nick Bjugstad was drafted, almost exactly one year ago today. And over and over again, Kyle threw his name out like a lifeline. 

Through every question his heart went so loud and hard in his chest it was a miracle the mics didn’t pick it up. A hard knot formed high in his stomach. When they finally, finally let him go, he walked a careful, deliberate path to the bathroom and locked the stall door behind him. He curled around the toilet and, rocked by alternating waves of terror and relief, brought up everything he’d eaten that day. 

He sat back, breathing swallow, open-mouthed gasps. Shaking hard enough he wasn’t willing to risk standing. 

Kyle spat and closed his eyes, and tried to slow his breathing. Tried not to think about the fact that he was going to have to leave this room eventually. 

He only got home because of how well Curt knew him. Curt – who wasn’t drafted, and knew he wasn’t going to be drafted, but came anyway, for Kyle – Curt had followed some twin instinct and found him and dragged him out. Curt’s hands had moved quick and rough over Kyle. Straightened his tie. Fixed his hat. He lifted Kyle’s chin and looked him right in the eye. “Good. Your eyes aren’t all red. Now, come on. It’s time to go home.” 

 

 

For three days after the Draft, Kyle didn’t talk to anyone but Curt. And he and Curt didn’t talk about anything but video games. They sat side by side on the couch in the basement and systematically murdered their way through Modern Warfare. 

Kyle’s phone – dead for two and a half days now – sat neglected next to a mountain of pizza boxes, empty soda bottles, and dirty dishes in various states of congealing. He stayed glued to Curt’s side in a way he hadn’t been since they were small, when they were the shadows of their older brothers, and everything that happened to one them, happened to both. 

On the fourth day, at roughly two o’clock in the morning, Kyle took a breath, set down his controller, said, “I’m not as good as them,” and started to cry. 

“Fuck.” Curt pushed the bowl of popcorn out of the way, and let Kyle collapse against his side. He didn’t ask who Kyle was talking about, because he’d been on every hockey team Kyle had ever been on, because he was Kyle’s twin brother, and he didn’t have to. 

“I’m not.” Kyle said. 

“Fuck. Kyle. Fuck.” Curt wrapped himself around Kyle. But he didn’t lie. He said, “You’re as good as you. And that’s good enough.” 

They stayed like that for a long time, foreheads pressed together, the first posture they ever knew. Curt breathed with him, their chests rising and falling in sync, until Kyle finally calmed. Kyle closed his eyes – still hot, still swollen – and said, “I’m scared.” 

Curt gave a little nod of acknowledgment. “That seems like a pretty legit thing to be.” 

That surprised a laugh out of Kyle. He worked up some sarcasm. “Thanks.” 

“C’mon,” Curt thumped a fist against his shoulder. “Everybody that gets drafted is scared.” 

“Leddy wasn’t.” 

“Leddy’s a freak.” 

“Chad wasn’t.” 

“Chad sure as shit _was_.” 

“You think?” It was possible. The more Kyle thought about it, the more he decided it was likely. He took a breath. “Nick was scared,” he admitted. Nick had been drafted last year, in the first round, nineteenth overall. That draft had been in LA, and Nick had called him after, even though it was late in Minnesota. He had babbled for almost an hour about fishing for sea bass off Catalina, hardly taking a breath the whole time. 

When he could finally get a word in, Kyle had said, “Guess you’re gonna get to find out what east coast fishing is like, too.” 

Nick’s voice had caught. A thick, wet hitch in his breathing. 

“Not for awhile, though,” Kyle said quickly. “Next year’s Minnesota for you.” 

“Yeah.” Nick sounded happier about that. 

The idea of Nick happy, the tenor of Nick’s voice easing, did something warm to Kyle’s insides, made him glad he was sitting down. And that was when he had decided. Decided and announced the decision, all in the space of one breath. “And then two years from now, I’ll be there too.” 

Nick paused. “Wait, for real?” 

“Yeah.” Kyle grinned into the phone. “Why not?” 

“That’s good.” Nick had said, and Kyle had been able to hear the smile in his voice. “That’s really, really good.” 

 

 

When Kyle’s breathing finally eased, Curt hummed, looked away for a second, and said, “You should call Nick.” 

Kyle pulled back, just enough to be able to look Curt in the eye. 

Curt’s mouth twisted into an uncomfortable line. “He called me. To make sure you were okay.” 

Kyle frowned, trying to imagine how that conversation had gone. “What’d you say?” 

“I said your phone was dead but you were fine.” He fixed Kyle with a look, like he wanted to make sure Kyle knew that just because he said it, didn’t mean he believed it was true. 

Kyle bit his lip. There were a lot of different things he could say, and he tried to imagine what Curt’s face would look like, how he would react if Kyle said some of them. He tried to imagine what words exactly he would use if he were going to say those things out loud, and if saying them aloud would make them true. 

He swallowed most of it back; he settled on, “Nick’s a really good person.” Because he was. He still called Kyle, even though he was at the U now, and busy. He kept track of how Eden Prairie was doing, and after they won the high school championship, Nick’s voice on the phone had been as breathless as if he had played all three OTs with them. 

Kyle met Curt’s eyes. “I can’t figure out why he bothers hanging out with me.” 

“Dammit, Kyle.” Curt smiled, this slow, careful grin, eggshell thin. “You stepped on my punch line.” 

His eyes still hurt from crying, and his throat was still hoarse, but Kyle laughed. 

 

 

At the end of that summer, Curt left for Odessa. Headed south to play hockey in a place so strange even the name had a foreign taste. He hugged Kyle before he left, all the things they never said to each other anymore other packed into that hug: _I know you and I love you and no matter what, you’re mine –_ all the things that never came out right when said aloud, but were true all the same. __

 

 

The University of Minnesota Men’s Ice Hockey Program welcomed Kyle in September of 2011 with endless rounds of fitness testing and an intimidating series of speeches about conduct and professionalism and history. 

And, with the those words about his sanctified predecessors still ringing in his ears, The University of Minnesota Men’s Ice Hockey _team_ welcomed Kyle and the other rookies in their own ordained and traditional way: 

The party spilled out of the dingy apartment into the courtyard. Half the furniture had been dragged outside, and tiki lights the blazing red of goal lamps were strung up wild and haphazard. 

Almost everyone was outside, gathered around the keg. The door was propped open, letting in the cold as Kyle made his way through a kitchen whose surfaces were almost invisible under a blanket of red and blue solo cups. 

Kyle was drunk. They were all drunk, but the rookies more than anyone. People kept passing him cups. His hands were sticky and his mouth tasted like malt. Kyle was the kind of drunk where it was hard to connect noises with their sources, hard to keep everything in focus, and walking back from the kitchen, he put a hand out to steady himself as the world gently listed and spun. 

Outside, Kyle stumbled, but someone caught him. Caught and held him upright. The voices of his new teammates were all around him, but the sounds all blurred together. 

He was guided back inside, and Kyle balked for a minute because he just came from inside, but the arm around his shoulders was insistent, and he was brought over to one of the couches in the living room. A light push sent him down, where another pair of hands caught him, and Kyle found himself sitting more or less in Nick Bjugstad’s lap, with the cold air leaking in from outside on his face, and Nick warm and solid like a pillar behind him. 

Someone from back towards the kitchen called out a question that Kyle didn’t catch, and Nick’s chest rumbled with laughter. Nick said, “Sure, sure. This one is mine.” His arm curled around Kyle. 

The distant voice said something else, but Kyle couldn’t make out who was speaking, couldn’t focus that far. The room tilted; he tried closing his eyes, but the spinning didn’t stop. He turned his face into Nick’s shoulder, pressed into the soft fabric of his hoodie. Nick’s hand came up, fingertips resting at the nape of his neck. Nick was laughing again, “Yeah, yeah – like: this is my rookie. There are lots, but this one is mine.” Nick sounded like he was quoting something. His fingers were rubbing circles into the skin of Kyle’s neck. “This rookie is my best friend. He is my wing. I must – fuck how does the rest go?” 

There was a pause – Nick waiting for an answer – but Kyle was focused on Nick’s hand in his hair and his other arm wrapped around Kyle’s waist. Holding him in place. Solid and safe and familiar. 

The voice never responded. Kyle gave up on listening and leaned into Nick. From outside came the wild sound of someone laughing and music kicked in, something with a heavy, throbbing bass that reverberated in his chest. 

Nick stayed quiet, his hands still making those small motions over Kyle’s skin, still moving through his hair. Kyle opened his eyes. The room was lit only with the red from outside and by a neon Corona sign mounted on the wall that made a strange gold and turquoise patchwork of Nick’s skin. The sounds of the party seemed very far away, and in the half dark the room felt private. Nick’s hands felt good, and Kyle’s whole world narrowed to the rise and fall of Nick’s chest and the places they were pressed together. 

Kyle shifted, moving to touch more of him. He pressed against Nick’s chest. He let his head fall back against Nick’s shoulder, and because that felt good, he rocked his hips. He felt Nick shifting under him, felt the rise and fall of Nick’s chest become more pronounced. 

Nick was drunk – must be drunk – because he moved his hand to Kyle’s hip. Kyle tilted his hips back again, and Nick’s grip tightened, and he made a small, wordless noise, right by Kyle’s ear. Kyle could feel his breathing get quicker. The hand at Kyle’s waist crept up underneath his sweatshirt, under his shirt, working its way in until Nick had his whole hand flush to Kyle’s skin – splayed across Kyle’s stomach with his fingertips dipping low, teasing up against the waistband of his shorts. The cold air that crept in with his touch made Kyle shiver, and Nick’s hold on him tightened. Kyle felt wound tight, like a trigger, like a spring, needy and breathless, and aching. He turned his face up to Nick’s. 

Kyle didn’t remember getting up, and he didn’t remember leaving the room, but the feeling of Nick’s hands on him, the memory of standing before him, leaning against him, and Nick’s careful, soft touch on his face, that stayed with him, vivid and clear. 

 

 

Kyle woke up in Nick’s bed. Alone and still dressed, although his shoes were missing. He lay still for a moment, listening to the quiet, wondering if waking up alone meant he’d done something he’d regret – or that he hadn’t. 

He hadn’t moved; he’d just had enough time to rub his eyes and assess that Nick Bjugstad’s ceiling was popcorn plaster – white with a yellow water stain in the corner – when there was a noise, and Nick appeared in the doorway, holding Gatorade and a bottle of Advil. He looked surprised, like he hadn’t expected Kyle to be awake. He paused, uncertain, and said, “Hi.” 

“Hi.” Kyle wasn’t sure what else to say. His thoughts were still slow and jumbled, and he wasn’t 100% certain what might or might not have happened, but he had managed to kick Nick out of his bed for the night. That much seemed clear. Kyle gestured at the bed. “Sorry about – ” 

“No, that’s – ” Nick stopped, and he looked flushed, looked red. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.” He stayed frozen in the doorway, and then he seemed to remember the items in his hands. He came in a few steps and hesitated again, like he was lost in his own room. After a moment, he sat on the edge of the bed and held the Gatorade out to Kyle. 

“Thanks.” Kyle turned the bottle between his hands. “I thought maybe – ” He didn’t dare lift his eyes from the label. “I thought I might have done something that – ” 

“No, um,” Nick was looking down at the sheets, picking at loose thread. He shrugged. “I guess I’m not sure how much you remember?” 

“It’s a little blurry,” Kyle admitted. 

“You – ” Nick started twisting his hand in the sheets, making knots and then smoothing them flat. “You asked me to – well. You told me to kiss you.” 

Kyle froze. 

“But I was – I mean, I _am_ okay with that.” He darted a look at Kyle. “I’m really okay with that. I just.” He shrugged; he looked embarrassed again. “You were drunk.” 

Kyle’s mouth was trying really hard to smile. Because this was Nick, and Nick Bjugstad wasn’t the sort of person that hooked up with people who were too drunk to stand on their own, even if they were in your lap. Even if they had pressed themselves up against you. He knew that with a calm, wonderful certainty. He thought: _Nick likes me, and I like him._

And nothing about that seemed bad. 

“I’m not drunk now,” Kyle said. “If you still want to kiss me.” 

Nick grinned. 

“Hey.” Budish leaned into the room. “We’re going on a coffee run and to buy carpet cleaner. Do you have any money?” 

Nick rolled his eyes. “I have, like, three dollars.” 

Budish held out his hand. “Gimme.” 

Kyle climbed out of bed and tracked down his shoes while Nick got that sorted. Nick looked a bit sheepish when he turned back to Kyle. “If we stay here, we’re gonna get roped into cleaning. But, I’ll walk you back to your dorm. If you like?” 

Kyle spent the whole walk back acutely aware of every time Nick’s hand brushed his. In the elevator, he threaded their fingers together. And in Kyle’s room, Nick did finally lean down and kiss him. 

Which meant, whatever else it was, and wherever else Kyle went, the University of Minnesota would always be the first place he kissed Nick Bjugstad. 

 

 

Kyle won the job of being Nick’s left wing in the first practice of his rookie season and he never gave it up. They played in over 80 games together and put up so many points that after a while Kyle stopped counting. They won titles. They set records. 

Those were the big things. Those were the loud things. The things that everybody talked about. 

They also shared an apartment, and sometimes a room. They studied, side by side in silence. They bought each other coffee. They waited up for each other after class. Kyle kept the fridge stocked with the red Vitamin Water Nick liked, and defended it against all comers. Nick left jokes about Kyle’s professors on post-its stuffed between the pages of his textbooks. Sometimes they talked about hockey, and sometimes they talked about Florida. Sometimes they talked about school, and sometimes they talked about bad TV or stupid trivia or about absolutely nothing at all. 

Those were the small, quiet things. The ones that nobody but the two of them talked about. 

Sometimes Kyle crawled into bed with him, and sometimes Nick held him after games until he could sleep. Sometimes Nick worked his shorts down and dragged his fingers across Kyle’s skin. Kyle learned all the lines of his body. Kyle learned what made Nick’s eyes close and his mouth fall open. The taste of his skin and the exact span of his hands. Sometimes it was so easy it was like nothing at all, but sometimes Nick held him tight to his chest, one long line of heat up and down Kyle’s whole body. Surrounding Kyle, breathing against Kyle’s neck, so close and so tight Kyle could feel the thump of his heart all the way through him. 

Those were the things not even they talked about. But maybe, in hindsight, those were the biggest things of all. 

 

 

In 2013, Kyle’s sophomore year and Nick’s junior, he knew Nick was going to go even before they lost to Yale to end the season. He knew because he lived in Nick’s pocket, and he heard all the conversations Nick was having with his _advisor_. They were the same conversations Leddy had. And the tightness around his mouth, the constant, small frown when he was on the phone – that was the way Leddy had looked. Nick’s words started coming out very weighed and measured. And that was how Kyle knew, even before Nick said anything, that he wasn’t coming back. 

Their very last game was in Grand Rapids, which meant their very last night was in a hotel room. The morning after, Kyle got up early and sat at the desk reading recaps of their loss. 

When Nick woke up, he came over to the desk and stood behind Kyle, silent for a long time. Kyle stopped reading, but he didn’t turn around. Nick put his hand on Kyle’s shoulder, and Kyle thought: _this is the very last time we’ll ever be like this._

Nick leaned down and kissed the back of neck. 

It hurt. It hurt like the worst thing Kyle could imagine. Hurt worse than being smashed into glass or ice. Hurt worse than anything that drew blood or broke bones. He said, “Don’t.” 

Nick was as calm and casual about stopping as he had been about starting. As he was about everything. “Okay,” he said. He took his hand off Kyle. 

It didn’t make it hurt any less when he left. 

 

 

Leddy brought the Cup back to Eden Prairie that July – on one of those perfect, cloudless days, as though the weather itself had conspired to best showcase the glint of sun on silver. 

Kyle watched the trophy from across the yard, and he watched Leddy. Leddy held a beer in one hand, and the other was resting on the girl at his side, at the small of her back. She had waves of dark hair, and brown eyes, and every time she looked at Leddy, he smiled. 

Kyle wondered if it made him a terrible person, that he could look at Leddy and feel part happy for him and part filled with a terrible, fierce ache. 

“One day, right?” Nick stepped up to stand beside him. 

Kyle blinked. Nick was looking at the Cup. Nick’s voice was heavy, even if he was smiling. 

It had been 105 days since they lost to Yale, 104 days since he had last kissed Nick, and 77 days since Nick scored his first NHL goal. Seventy-seven days since they last spoke – awkward, but too big an occasion for Kyle to let slip by. Kyle hadn't known what to say then; he still didn’t know what to say. 

Nick looked at him. His face was lightly sunburned, his arms and the part of his throat his shirt revealed were also pink. Kyle thought, if he reached out, Nick’s skin would be warm to the touch. Kyle listened to the sound of people laughing around them, and of cameras going off, and at the edges of the party, kids running, their laughter cutting through the air. He tucked his hands into his pockets. 

Nick dropped his gaze. 

But the cities weren’t really big enough for them to get away with not talking at all, so Kyle swallowed, fought down the tight feeling in his chest, and cleared his throat. “You gonna be in town long?” 

“No, I’ve got dev camp, but – ” Nick was squinting, like the sun was in his eyes. “But I’ll be back for a bit after that.” He tried to smile at Kyle, but his mouth wouldn’t quite hold it. 

Watching his face made something twist up in Kyle’s chest. Kyle used to hate anyone and anything that upset Nick, but this one was on Kyle. Kyle was the one who ended it; this ache in the air between them was his fault. “You should – call me. Let me know how camp goes.” 

Nick’s expression went still. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah, I mean – I’m gonna have to do it too, sooner or later.” Kyle swallowed. “Might as well get some pointers.” He tested out a small grin. 

Nick’s cautious look thawed. He smiled, slow but honest. “Okay. I will.” 

Kyle didn’t get a chance to talk to Leddy until later – until most of the crowd had filtered away, and the heat of the day had eased into dark. There was a fire going, and Leddy was slouched in front of it, still in the Eden Prairie jersey he’d been wearing for most of the day. “Rauser,” he said, and he pulled Kyle down next to him. 

Leddy was the sort of loose and unfocused a day spent drinking in the sun brought on. He threw his arm around Kyle and held him tight to his shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re here. So glad you could be here.” 

“Well, I live here,” Kyle said. 

Leddy laughed. He looked down at Kyle. “You guys did good this year, getting into the Frozen Four.” 

Kyle poked at one of the logs in the fire with the toe of his shoe. “We got bounced.” 

“Yeah, but you got in.” He smiled, and something in Kyle still lit up at that. The part of him, Kyle thought, that was always going to thrill to Leddy’s approval. 

Leddy patted his shoulder. “I’m sorry I didn’t call after you guys lost. It’s just been so crazy, you know?” 

Kyle nodded. “No, that’s – I understand.” 

Leddy grinned at him, but it stung. Tomorrow, the Cup would be packed away. In a few weeks, Leddy would return to Chicago, Nick to Florida. Both of them gone on to bigger things like their import made it inevitable, the transition a smooth, seamless glide. Even with a smile still pasted on his face, Kyle was furious for a beat, and even after the first rush of anger faded, jealous for a long time after that. 

They would be gone, and Kyle would still be right here. Trying to live up to long shadows, that wouldn’t even do him the decency of standing still. 

 

 

Kyle’s junior year they went all the way to the Final of the Frozen Four, where they lost to Union. 

Kyle went back for his senior year, even though it meant saying no to Florida’s GM, and even though it meant fielding phone calls from people like Curt, who said, “Are you fucking insane?” 

And maybe he was insane, because there was no good way to say it without sounding crazy. No good way to say, _I have to do better than what Leddy or Bjugstad did here._

No good way to say, _I’m not going to be the one that leaves._

 

 

* * *

 

2\. Now (Spring in Texas) 

In the fresh and dawning months of 2015, it was easy to believe in fortune, that in some way, destiny had been written and was only waiting to be received. 

Kyle thinks that if there is some destiny – some cosmic justice – that going back for his senior year should guarantee a victory. They’d avenge last year’s loss in the Finals. Kyle would go out crowned in glory, and there’d be absolutely no possible debate about whether or not this year was _worth it._

But, it turns out that this is not a fairy tale, and any sense of destiny is only a trick of the changing light. They lose the last game of Kyle’s senior year. To Duluth. In the Frozen Four regional semis. That happens on Friday night. 

Kyle sits in the locker room and stares at the floor. When he can’t sit there anymore, he stands in the shower, and when his skin prunes, he stands with the water off and with a towel in his hand. 

He gets dressed in the smallest possible increments. First one sock, then the other. First one button, then the next. Each action imbued with the weight that it will be the last. The last time he does _this_ with this team. The last time he does _that._

He is supposed to say something to them. Something that acknowledges that this is the end. Something that imparts some kind of wisdom. But there is a heat and a weight in his throat, and Kyle knows that if he tries to speak, he’ll break into a million pieces. Instead, he sits with them, shoulder to shoulder. Leaning into them. Letting them lean into him. 

 

 

In the Manchester hotel room, he faces down everyone else via his phone. He listens to the cooing noises his mother makes and his father’s sighs. Kyle drafts and deletes at least four versions of a text to Leddy. In the end, he erases nine tenths of what he’s written and just sends: _we lost_. 

There is no immediate response. 

There is a text from Nick Bjugstad. _I’m sorry,_ it reads. _Call me if you want to talk._

Kyle must read it at least twenty times, and every time it sounds different. In the unmoored and melancholy place Kyle’s head is at, it feels like Nick’s text could be about anything. It could be about everything. But, of course, it’s not. It’s about a hockey game. _Of course_ it’s about a hockey game. 

“You’re supposed to be asleep,” Kyle says into the phone, first thing. 

Nick snorts. “I’ve got the rest of the fucking season to sleep.” Nick’s done, too. Nick’s back ended his season for him. 

Kyle is an asshole for not asking after it earlier. Kyle is an asshole for not calling more often. Kyle is just an asshole. “How are you doing?” 

Nick makes a noise that means he doesn’t want to talk about his back. 

Kyle’s jaw works, he turns his eyes up to the ceiling. “Did you watch?” 

“Yeah.” Nick hesitates, one of those uncertain pauses that infest their conversations now. “Do you really want to talk about the game?” 

“No.” Kyle doesn’t want to talk about anything. Kyle falls back against the bed, stares up at the ceiling. He thinks about how, down in Florida, Nick is probably flat on his back, too. Staring up at some other ceiling. 

“I’m sorry,” Nick says. “I know it sucks, and I’m sorry.” 

Kyle’s mouth twists up in irritation, and he pulls the phone away from his ear so he doesn’t have to listen. He rests a hand over his eyes. Nick’s flat on his back and he’s trying to make Kyle feel better, and Kyle can’t even listen to him. There’s something sick at the pit of his stomach, and Kyle’s jaw keeps clenching up on him. They’re both quiet for a minute. Kyle tries to come up with something to talk about, tries to think of something to say that won’t make him lose it on the phone. It takes work to speak in a halfway normal voice. “How’s Florida? How’s the team doing?” 

“Hanging on. Not dead yet. We just need a little bit of luck, and – ” Nick’s voice rasps, and it’s hard to tell if he really believes it, or if it’s something he’s trying to talk himself into. He stops, and Kyle can hear him swallow. Nick blows out a long breath. “It’s so much pressure, K. It’s so fucking much pressure.” 

Kyle looks over at the logo on the U of M hoodie draped over the back of the chair and squeezes his eyes shut. “I know. Trust me, I know.” 

“It’s so much worse – you have no idea.” Nick’s voice runs over him, quick, like the words are getting away from him. “It’s so, so fucking much. And now I can’t even – ” 

Kyle’s exhausted enough that the slide from irritated to angry is instant. Instant, and brilliant, and white-hot. “Yeah, well, I guess I’m not qualified to say.” 

“Kyle,” Nick hesitates. “I didn’t mean – ” 

Kyle cuts him off. “Sure.” 

Nick stays quiet for a long minute. “Fine. I am too fucking tired to – ” 

“If you’re so fucking tired, why bother talking to me? You should be resting up, you know, for games that actually matter – ” 

“ _You_ called _me.”_

Kyle’s head hurts. This is the way their conversations go now, even though he never wants it to be like this. And they’ve done this often enough that he knows if he stays on the line, everything’s just going to get worse. “I gotta go. I gotta sleep.” 

He wants to call back the instant he ends the call, like if he could just try it again, he could find a way to navigate this that didn’t make them both feel so awful. 

A text from Leddy came in while they were talking. A single, sad emoji face. 

Proof that too little can also make him feel like shit. Kyle considers throwing the phone across the room. Kyle considers smashing something. Instead he texts Curt, _fuck everything_. 

Curt’s done with hockey, but he still knows what Kyle’s feeling. Which means he responds with a picture of a fifth of Maker’s. And he’s back in Minnesota again, which means he follows it up with just the words, _Waiting for you. Come home._

 

 

Things move very quickly. 

They lost the game on Friday. On Saturday, Kyle’s on a plane back to Minnesota. 

On Sunday morning, Kyle is viciously hung over. He sits at his parents’ kitchen table, with a bag of ice taped to his side. 

And, because Minnesota is the land of continually bracing yourself and pushing on, by Sunday afternoon, he’s signed his ELC with Florida. 

 

 

By Monday he’s on a plane to San Antonio, where he’s supposed to help their AHL team with their playoff push. 

Because apparently, if you’re a Rau, there’s always going to come a time when the road of your life runs through Texas. 

 

 

Kyle hits Texas running on maybe six total hours of sleep in the last three days. He gets in late, but one of the assistant coaches is waiting for him at the airport. He has a sign that says Kyle’s name, but Kyle’s so tired he almost walks past him anyway. The coach says, “Welcome to San Antonio.” 

In the artificial daylight between baggage carousels one and two, they might as well be on the moon. Kyle stares at his face, the baggage belts squeaking and circling behind them, and then Kyle realizes with a start, that probably some unacceptably high number of seconds has passed, and he’s just been staring, blank, like an idiot. He blinks and with a voice that comes out like sandpaper, says, “Thank you.” 

Kyle keeps his eyes out the window on the drive to the hotel, but it’s already dark. For now, Texas is just lines on the highway and billboards and the oncoming headlights of cars, and whatever else it might look will stay hidden, at least until tomorrow. 

The coach says, “You’re sharing a room with a kid named Mike Matheson. He got in yesterday.” 

Kyle nods. He’s played against Matheson. Boston College kid. “Okay.” 

“First practice is tomorrow. Someone will pick you up at the hotel.” 

“Okay.” 

“Try to get some rest.” 

“Okay.” Kyle can’t stop saying okay. Like a robot with circuits worn down to one final command. He probably sounds like an asshole. But his eyes are so dry they hurt, and his brain is completely out of words. 

Kyle tries to open the door to the hotel room as quiet as possible, wincing when it creaks and the light from the hallway spills in. But Matheson is dead to the world, just a vague shape in one of the beds and snoring lightly. Kyle makes his way to the empty bed and drops his things. 

It is the first quiet moment he’s had in a long, long time. It feels strange not to be moving. 

Part of him feels like he’s still playing Duluth. Part of him is still trying to get back just one more goal. 

Kyle strips down to his shorts and t-shirt. He lies down, but that’s a joke. His eyes feel pinned open. He should be asleep. Instead he’s lying there, listening to some Hockey East asshole snore. 

Kyle sits up. 

He goes into the bathroom and shuts the door. The fan and the light come on together, and the sound is loud and the light glares harsh and fluorescent. He looks at himself in the mirror; he’s got circles under his eyes so dark it looks like he’s been punched in the face. His lips are chapped and he needs to shave. He’s surprised that back in the airport, the coach didn’t take one look at him, fold up his sign, and walk away. 

Kyle flips his t-shirt up and traces his fingers over his ribs, his stomach, pressing to see how sore he still is. He turns, tries to look over his shoulder at the spot on his back, just over his left kidney that aches. He took a stick there during his last game. 

His very last college game. 

Kyle drops his shirt. It should have taken longer. They were supposed to go back to the Finals this year. They were supposed to win. Kyle’s breath starts coming shallow and quick. 

They didn’t win. They didn’t, and now that’s over. That whole part of his life is over. 

Kyle closes his eyes. The bathroom scenery isn’t making him feel any more grounded. Kyle’s been in a hundred hotel bathrooms, and they’re all exactly the same. Which makes them their own sort of disorienting. Going off the white plastic shower curtain and the humming fluorescent bulbs, he could still be in Manchester. He could be anywhere, maybe even still back in Minnesota. Maybe he’s dreaming, maybe his college career hasn’t even started, much less ended. Maybe he’ll wake up in his childhood bed, parents’ roof above him. 

Kyle opens his eyes. 

He looks at his reflection in the mirror and mouths, _where the fuck am I?_

His mirror self doesn’t cut him any slack, doesn’t offer an answer. Doesn’t do anything but lean in when Kyle leans, close his eyes again when Kyle closes his. 

Gotta put your head down. Gotta keep moving. 

 

 

This stretch of Texas turns out to be rolling hills, studded with short, gnarled trees and watched over by a sky that changes color hourly and stretches on for miles and miles and miles. Their hotel is comfortably ensconced in the suburbs, which means everything that can be paved over has been, and everything else has been hacked and tidied into submission. The hotel is across the street from a strip mall and next to a highway. If it weren’t for the gold-brown of the grass and the occasional cactus in the landscaping, it wouldn’t look that different from home. 

He and Matheson wake up early enough to eat a free, continental breakfast downstairs. There’s a family across the dining room from them who have set their children free to roam, but the room is otherwise empty. Matheson inhales two full mugs of black coffee before he looks ready to even try talking to Kyle. 

His eyes flick from the mug to Kyle, expression so flat it’s like the caffeine hasn’t yet worked its way into the muscles of his face. “Rau,” he says, finally acknowledging him. 

It would be more intimidating if Kyle didn’t know Matheson spent fifteen minutes that morning trying to get the hair at the back of his head to lie flat, and that he’s the kind of guy who texts his girlfriend first thing when he wakes up. 

Kyle only knows about the girlfriend thing because she’d responded while Matheson was in the shower, and it hardly counts as snooping if the text that pops up on the phone left lying on the bed is just a row of hearteyes. 

Kyle wonders if Matheson’s gonna be the kind of guy who asks Kyle if Kyle has a girlfriend. He wonders if Matheson’s the sort that will care that he doesn’t. If he’ll care if Kyle doesn’t lie about why. But there are lots of ways around that conversation. Kyle’s learned more than a few. 

“Matheson.” 

Matheson blinks twice. “You planning on bringing your shit-bag pest game to the pro level?” 

“Absolutely,” Kyle says, without any inflection at all. “You bringing your flat-footed, zone cheating A game?” 

Matheson keeps a perfectly straight face as well. “Of course.” 

Kyle blinks back at him. “So. Denver?” Boston College went out to Denver, in the same round Minnesota went out. 

Matheson winces, just a little. Blood drawn. “Yep.” There is an intense level of disdain in Matheson’s voice. His eyes lock on Kyle’s. “Duluth?” 

“Duluth.” Kyle drags the name out. It wasn’t supposed to end like that. It wasn’t supposed to end so early. He can still picture that stupid fucking bulldog and Duluth’s happy pile at the end of the game. 

Matheson hums, considering. “Could be worse,” he says, after a moment. “Union didn’t even make the tourney.” 

“ _Fuck_ Union.” 

Matheson’s mouth curls up into a grin, like they’ve finally found something they can agree on. “Exactly.” 

 

 

Matheson doesn’t say he’s nervous, and he doesn’t ask Kyle if Kyle’s nervous. They’re not quite friends enough for that. But when Connor Brickley calls to say he’s on his way, Matheson checks over his gear like five times. Kyle watches his hands methodically comb through pockets. Touching his pads. Running his fingers over his laces. And he doesn’t make fun of Kyle, who can’t stand still while he’s waiting, or say anything about the way Kyle paces the lobby. So, maybe, it’s enough that they’re in the same boat. 

Brickley picks them up wearing shorts and flip flops – it’s warm out already, even this early – and Ray-Bans to keep out the Texas sunlight, which comes in sharp and sheer. Up until last year, Brickley played for UVM. Kyle’s played against him, and even with him once, when they were both on the roster for the Hlinka, back in 2009. He wonders if that’s why the team sent Brickley to pick them up. 

“Good team, good room this year,” Brickley says on the drive over. “You’re lucky – we’re at home this whole week. Getting ready to play the Flames.” He pauses, thoughtful. “The Flames are whatever. The Flames are like – the Merrimack of the AHL Western conference.” 

Those are his last words of wisdom until outside the locker room, where he shrugs before pushing the door open and fixes both of them with a look. “I did this last year. I know it’s weird, but it’ll be fine, okay? You’ll see.” 

 

 

Lots of things happen to Kyle that day. 

Kyle gets his own stall in a professional hockey team dressing room. 

Kyle meets the captain, Greg Zanon, who he remembers from when Zanon used to play for the Wild. He wonders if Leddy ever met him, at camp or something. He wonders if Leddy felt the same vague shakiness and disbelief that Kyle does over the interaction. He wonders if this is what Nick felt like, when he walked into the Florida locker room for the first time. 

Kyle and Nick had never really talked about that. That whole first year after Nick left, they could never manage much more than superficial bullshit, like they were trying to figure out how to talk to each other all over again. 

It was different for guys like Leddy and Nick, anyway. They were the kind of guys who know they’re good enough. First round picks. The kind of guys teams build around. Not someone who may or may not hold onto a roster spot. Not someone who’s gonna have to scratch and claw to find a place. 

Kyle tries to act like talking to Zanon is totally normal. He tries to remember everyone else’s name. And the staff’s names. He tries to place the people that look vaguely familiar, and he decides the Florida GM must like NCAA kids, because there are several. He looked over the team’s stats before he got here, so he knows who the team’s scoring leaders are and who’s on a hot streak. He tries extra hard to stay out of their way, in case they’re the superstitious type. He tries not to stare at the guy at the end of the row of lockers, who is definitely Dany _fucking_ Heatley. 

Zanon smiles like he can read all those thoughts on Kyle’s face, says, “Follow Bricks around. He’ll get you set up.” 

Between the two of them, Kyle and Matheson manage to figure out where the sharpener is. Where the sticks are kept . Where the tape is (stick, athletic, and masking). Where the chalk is. Where they can find a screwdriver. All the little tiny things you feel dumb asking someone for. 

Matheson tries on his new helmet. He looks at Kyle and swipes his hand across the windshield. “How to I look?” 

Kyle tilts his head. “Like some major junior asshole.” 

“God.” Matheson sounds disgusted. “That’s what I was afraid of.” 

Kyle thinks that, for at least the foreseeable future, Mike Matheson might be his very best friend. 

 

 

Both of them ride out the game that night in the press box, trying and failing the whole time to not tug at ties and shirt collars. “When was even the last time you were a healthy scratch?” Matheson asks, voice pitched low. 

Kyle honestly has to think about it. “I – I don’t even remember.” 

Matheson looks satisfied. “I think that means we’re doing something right. Like, we’ve leveled up.” 

That’s probably as good a way to think about it as any. Kyle shrugs. “Sure.” 

Matheson falls quiet, watching the game below. For a moment, Kyle turns to watch the media they’re sharing the space with. Before the game, a few of them had come over and introduced themselves, but they hadn’t expected Kyle to say much, which was a relief. Some of them had a twang in their voice, and Kyle tries to imagine what it would be like to be interviewed by someone who sounds like he just walked off the set of a western. There are more than a few cowboy hats in the crowd, but the fans are loud and raucous, and Kyle’s heart goes a little faster watching the players on the ice. 

A thousand miles from anywhere known, and Kyle’s gonna make a place for himself here. 

 

 

This newfound confidence lasts until his first game. 

He looks out at the staring white of the ice, and his heart batters the inside of his chest. In the tunnel, Heatley’s face takes on this sly expression. “Just like college hockey,” he tells Kyle. “Except bigger and faster. And meaner.” He shows his teeth when he grins. 

Kyle’s first shift is a watercolor blur. There’s noise all around him, warbling in and out, muffled like he’s underwater. On the ice, he can feel himself drifting, he thinks he should be in a hundred different places at once, which means he’s probably in the wrong place, but he’s not quite sure if he’s supposed to be high, or low, or – 

The Flames score and there’s a scrum behind the net so fast Kyle feels like everyone must have teleported there. Just three minutes into the game and Racine is screaming like the Flames player slapped his mother. Heatley – _Dany fucking Heatley_ – jumps into the pile, and Kyle – 

Kyle hangs back. There’s a Flames player holding onto his arm like Kyle might be planning on joining in, which is a laugh, because all Kyle can think is, who the fuck _are_ these people? And what is he doing here? 

That thought echoes around his head the whole first period. 

At the start of the second, Coach asks him, “You gonna keep that minus all night, or you gonna do something?” 

The bottom drops out of Kyle’s stomach. He stares back and it takes everything in him to say, “I’m gonna do something.” 

Coach calls, “Next offensive faceoff, Rau line go.” 

They line up at the next whistle, Kyle spinning once to make eye contact with his wingers before he takes the dot. All he can hear is the crowd, and all he can feel is his heart like a battering ram in his chest. The Flames player across the dot from him leans over Kyle, looming like he doesn’t realize Kyle is just gonna slip out from under him. 

He frowns up at the Flames player, and that’s when it hits him: _Oh. You have no idea who I am._

This new anonymity is a delight. Kyle grins. 

Kyle’s not ever gonna be as fast as Leddy and he’s never gonna have Nick’s reach. But this, Kyle knows how to do. Kyle is going to move hard and fast off the drop. He’s going to stay low to get the puck out, and then he’s going to go hard for the net. 

Ninety-nine times out a hundred, if you want to score a goal, the puck’s got to travel through the crease. Which is why Kyle has made his living as a hockey player setting up shop there, digging in, and refusing to be moved. 

He gets the puck out to the D. The D sends it to Heatley. Heatley feeds it to the slot, and Kyle is there. Kyle is ready. Which means his first pro goal comes in his very first pro game, off a feed from Dany fucking Heatley. 

You know, because that sort of thing happens when you’re a professional hockey player, playing professional hockey, in a professional league. 

 

 

The guys don’t ride him too hard for popping his cherry, meaning they don’t go out anywhere too crazy – probably mostly because there’s not that much craziness to find in this neck of the suburbs, and Kyle’s still too new to want to risk getting yelled at for missing curfew, and they have an early bus tomorrow anyway. But a big group of them end up drinking Bud Lights at the Applebee’s across the street from Kyle’s San Antonio Days Inn home. 

Kyle slots in neatly between Matheson and Brickley, and even Heatley, who’s over at the next table, tips his glass towards Kyle. 

Kyle’s had enough that it no longer seems bewildering that he’s drinking at an Applebee’s, across the table from Greg Zanon. It seems normal. He suspects if he has a couple more, it’ll seem hilarious. 

Bricks pushes another beer towards him and then glances at Kyle’s phone, buzzing on the table. “You got a girl back home, Rauser? You need to get that?” He looks amused. 

Kyle laughs. “No, it’s just – texts from guys at the U. Mostly.” 

It is. The U’s group text has been lighting up his phone all night. Congratulations slowly morphing into ribbing and counter-ribbing, all without Kyle needing to contribute much more than a keysmash here and there. 

He talked to his parents and Curt while he was still at the rink. “Hey,” he’d said, still breathless, to Curt. It was hard to know exactly how excited to sound when, for the first time, Curt wasn’t playing hockey. He was doing his own thing, and it was like proof that they were more different now than the same. 

Curt said, “I have a paper due tomorrow, so get all your bragging in quick.” 

Kyle laughed. “It was – it was really cool.” 

“That’s – you’re so lame. You’re so incredibly lame,” Curt said. And then, in a lower voice. “Congrats.” 

After that, Kyle snapped a picture of the game puck that the equipment guys had taped up for him, and sent it to Chad. 

Chad had sent back, _I got 65 in the A. Keep em coming._

Which for Chad, probably counts as encouragement. 

Kyle sinks back into the booth. Racine is talking about what there is to do in Oklahoma City, which is where they’re headed next. Based on his gestures, he seems adamant that OKC’s worthwhile activities can be counted off with the fingers of one hand. Kyle grins a little. It’s gonna be a seven hour ride up to OKC tomorrow, but as ridiculous as it is, Kyle’s looking forward to it. 

“Drink, Rauser,” Bricks says, and pushes the beer towards him again. “You go home sober tonight, I’ll never forgive myself.” 

Kyle grins and picks it up, tipping it towards Bricks in mock salute. 

Bricks turns back towards Racine. “Okay, I wasn’t listening, but here’s why you’re wrong – ” 

The night has a warm, easy feel. It’s good in a way that makes him happy to be here and that makes him miss his old team, all at the same time. He picks up his phone and gets on the group text long enough to fire off a quick, _I love you guys._

Three of them respond before he can even put the phone down, each a variation on, _KYLES DRUNK!_

Kyle laughs. Probably he is. 

Drunk enough, anyway, to flip back over to his messages and check if there’s anything new. He scrolls through the new texts, looking at the names. A part of him is still waiting to hear from Leddy, a part of him still wondering what’s going to be good enough to get him to call. 

There’s nothing on his phone from Leddy, which is disappointing, and then makes him feel angry about being disappointed. Leddy’s in the middle of his own playoff push. He’s busy. He’s probably barely keeping up with his own family, much less keeping an eye on AHL boxscores. And he’s on the east coast now, where it’s really late. It would be stupid to expect anything. 

Kyle takes another pull from his beer and rolls his eyes. It’s _also_ stupid to sit here, getting all anxious, and making up lists in his head why it’s okay that Leddy didn’t call. It is almost as lame as how, when he was sixteen, he used to make up lists of things he and Leddy could talk about. Things he and Leddy could go do, in that fantasy world in his head where he and Leddy did things. This might actually be even lamer – because Kyle isn’t sixteen anymore, he’s twenty-two. Way too old for this awkward brand of hero worship. Way too old to let his stomach get twisted up about Nick Leddy. 

There is, of course, a message on his phone from Nick Bjugstad. And not just a message: an honest-to-god voicemail. 

It’s been waiting in his inbox for hours, and Kyle hasn’t listened to it yet. He’s not entirely sure why. 

They haven’t talked since the aborted conversation the night U of M got eliminated, and the thought of Nick’s voice makes a strange uneasiness crawl up his spine, his palms go clammy, and triggers that uncomfortable race in his heart’s rhythm. He thinks it might be weird to hear Nick’s voice right now. 

Sometimes, it feels like they talk too much. 

Kyle can still sort of hear Racine and Brickley arguing, but it sounds faded now, distant. Like Kyle’s come disconnected, slipped somehow into his own little pool of quiet. 

He doesn’t want to hear from Nick. He didn’t want to hear Nick’s conciliatory gestures back in Manchester, and he doesn’t want to hear how Nick is happy for him now. 

Because Nick will be. That’s what the message will be about; there’s no questioning it. Of course Nick will be happy for him. Nick will act like it’s a big deal that Kyle scored one goal in a training wheels league that Nick never had to step foot in. Nick will be proud: look at _Kyle_ living up to his _potential._ Kyle can taste something sour building in the back of his throat. 

Kyle shifts in his seat. He wants to go back to the part of the night where he was laughing at Racine, and where Bricks was pushing beers at him, and where he was looking forward to spending all day trapped with these guys. His success here – the fact that he’s in a city he never dreamed of living in, and maybe just on the verge of making it work – feels precious and fragile and impossible to put into words. 

A familiar tightness is starting to creep into his chest. His heartbeat starting to kick up and this thoughts starting to skip, in that terrible familiar way that used to keep him up nights in high school, and had followed him to college, holding him awake long after games and late into the morning, wondering if what he was doing was ever going to be good enough. 

He takes a breath and makes himself hold it while he taps at the phone until he can look at Nick Bjugstad’s name, written out in the red of a missed call. It’s late enough to justify not calling him back. It’s late enough to justify not listening to it until tomorrow morning. He could say his phone died. He could say he couldn’t get away. He could say he passed out early. 

Or, he could say nothing at all. Kyle is way the fuck and gone in Texas. Kyle is doing his own thing in Texas – the first place he’s ever been where Nick or Leddy wasn’t there first. He gets to build himself here, and he gets to pick whose opinions he cares about here. He can feel a flush rising in his face that’s not just alcohol. His chest is tight and he’s _angry_ that his chest is tight. Angry that he’s anything at all but happy and drinking with his new team. 

He thinks Nick and Leddy are living up to their shared name, because at this rate, Kyle is going to die from a thousand small cuts. Kyle is tired of worrying all the time. Kyle is so fucking tired of spending every waking minute wondering if he’s ever going to be as good as Nick Bjugstad or Nick Leddy. 

He thinks about his dad saying, “No one’s gonna hand you anything.” 

But that’s okay, because down here, Kyle going to take it. 

“Hey, lemme out for a second,” he says. 

Matheson moves out of his way without a word, still focused on Racine, and Kyle slips out unnoticed. 

It’s cool outside now, with the stars sparking overhead and a breeze coming in from the west. But the cement sidewalk holds the heat, still radiating warmth when he sits down on the curb, under the neon light of the Applebee’s sign. He thinks about calling Leddy for a second and laughs – that’s a problem that’s solved itself. That just leaves one. 

Nick’s voice, when he answers, is gravelly with sleep. “Hey. I was wondering if you were gonna call.” 

The fondness in Nick’s tone is enough to make Kyle seize up for second. “Hey,” he manages. “Sorry it’s so late.” 

“No, no problem. I know how it goes. Congrats, man. I couldn’t watch, but – ” 

“Nick,” Kyle says, his voice catches thick in his throat, and it’s enough for Nick to stop talking. And he needs to press on, he needs to get through this, but there’s no good way to say this. There’s no good way to get this across without sounding completely fucking desperate or insane. Maybe Kyle is one of those. Maybe Kyle is both of those. “I can’t talk to you.” 

Nick sounds confused. “You mean – now?” 

“No.” Kyle rubs a hand across his face, shades his eyes from a sweep of headlights crawling over the parking lot. “It’s hard to explain. But I need to do this, I need to try to do this on my own. I don’t want to talk to you.” 

There’s a stretch of silence so long Kyle almost breaks down, almost says he doesn’t mean it, and begs for the words back. He covers his mouth with his hand instead. 

Nick says, “You called me… to tell me you don’t want to talk to me?” 

“I just can’t. I just can’t without – ” Without going crazy worrying about what Nick’s thinking. Without thinking about how much better Nick’s doing. “It’s too much – thinking about you and thinking about – it’s too much. I need to do this on my own.” 

The sounds of the highway seem loud in the dark, like the cars are just feet away. Kyle stares up at the eaves of the Applebee’s striped awnings made lurid by red light. He listens to the silence on the phone line. He waits. 

Nick finally says, “I – okay.” He sounds like he’s going to say something more, but he doesn’t. Nick’s breathing hard into the phone, and Kyle can picture just exactly how he looks – the tight, sad line his mouth would make. His blue eyes and their well of concern. And the look of hurt that would be stamped all across his face. 

It aches so hard and sharp Kyle has to bite his knuckle for a moment to distract himself. His voice comes out choked. “You can hang up on me. You can tell me to fuck off – ” 

Nick sucks in a breath. “I’m not going to tell you to fuck off – ” 

Kyle is the worst human being in the world. “Why not? You should. You – ” 

“Because I want whatever is going to make you happy – ” 

Kyle’s head is starting to throb. “Don’t say that. Don’t say that. I’m being an asshole. Why are you being nice?” 

“Kyle, you’re not making any sense. Because you’re my friend. Because I care about you. I don’t like it – you just finished school. You're in a brand new place. I want to make sure you're okay, but – ” 

“I’m fine,” Kyle says, words forced out in one hard breath. “I’m _fine._ ” 

There are people spilling out of the restaurant, and Kyle turns away from them. He stares at the ground and lowers his voice. “I’m fine. I just can’t talk to you anymore.” 

Nick doesn’t say anything. 

“Did you hear me? I said – ” 

“You’re still gonna talk to Curt, right?” Nick’s voice comes out tamped down. Like his throat’s tight, like it’s work to get it out. “Because if I find out you’re not talking to Curt, I'm going to send somebody to Texas – ” 

“Nick,” Kyle says. He has no idea what his own voice sounds like. It must sound awful. It hurts to speak. “ _Nick.”_

Nick cuts off, all at once. “Sorry.” 

Kyle lets his head fall back and hit the wall, and the sting is a pleasant distraction. “Why are youapologizing? I’m the one being the asshole.” 

“I don’t know.” Nick’s voice is tight in a way Kyle hasn’t heard for a long time. “I don’t know what else to say.” 

Kyle’s whole head hurts. His whole body hurts. “I'm gonna hang up now.” 

Nick takes one breath. Then two. The last thing he says is, “Good luck in San Antonio.” 

Kyle ends the call. 

 

 

The AHL runs in fits and starts, spurts and lulls. It feels strange after having the same schedule for the last four years. But Kyle does well. He gets a new number to go with his new locker. He gets a regular spot in the lineup (at center, and he spares a brief _fuck you_ , to that long ago but not forgotten Team USA coach). He gets wingers in Bricks and Dany fucking Heatley, and he holds his own with the latter – even if he still cannot completely meet his eyes. 

Kyle’s not anybody’s little brother on this team. Kyle’s not anybody’s sidekick. 

He works as hard as he ever has in practice, hard enough for Coach to keep putting his line out on the ice. He picks up three points in four games. He learns where things are. He manages not to get too lost in the anonymous twists of the hallways under the Ice Center. He has his spot on the bus. He starts a regular breakfast ritual with Matheson. He has a regular commute with Bricks. 

And, it might be the exhaustion, but in Texas, he sleeps. 

 

 

Florida’s season ends on the 11th. San Antonio picks up Vince Trocheck and a couple of other players on two-ways off their roster. 

They don’t look especially thrilled to be here. Trocheck, especially. Trocheck is waiting in the locker room when the team shows up to the rink before the game on Thursday – sprawled on the couch, with his hoodie pulled up. His head is tilted back, eyes on the ceiling, and he seems to be glaring at nothing in particular. Unless, of course, one of the ceiling tiles has somehow seriously offended him. 

Kyle watches the way Trocheck’s fingers drum over the arm of the couch. And the hard line of his mouth, and the way he doesn’t look at anybody as they come in. 

The equipment guys set him up in the empty stall next to Kyle’s. Kyle braces himself on instinct when Trocheck comes over. Trocheck’s American, and Kyle’s age, so even if he went the OHL route, he’s always been on the periphery of Kyle’s hockey life. Passingly familiar, if not well known. 

Trocheck gives Kyle a dark look. “That one was mine.” He nods at the stall Kyle’s sitting in front of. There are purple circles under his eyes, and his voice is so flat that Kyle can’t tell if he’s joking. 

Trocheck smiles, thin as a knife. “But that’s alright. You can have it.” He drops down next to Kyle like something whose strings have been cut and starts dressing without another word. 

The guys come by as they’re getting ready, dribbling past in ones and two, giving daps and bumps to Trocheck’s shoulder. Trocheck gives the minimal response, brushing his knuckles to theirs or nodding. He doesn’t say much. Guys that were up with Florida for a few games or a stretch here and there stay longer. And it’s not that they talk more – that’s the beauty of it: they don’t have to. All those solemn _heys_ and hooded looks say so much more – that they know, and so you don’t have to explain. They demand nothing and they save you, when you know for certain that if you try to explain you’ll fall apart. There’s no contempt coded into the silence, it’s that they know you and love you anyway. 

This, maybe more than anything, is what drove Kyle to force his continued existence in hockey, long after his shortcomings should have pushed him out. 

Trocheck’s eyes say enough – that it hurt the way the season ended. That defeat is still clinging sharp to his skin, claws dug in, or like sandpaper that’s somehow forced its way down your throat and scraped you raw from the inside out. Kyle knows what that feels like, what it feels like for something to end hard, when you wanted there to be more. 

Olsen – who was with Florida earlier in the year, but has been down in San Antonio since just before Kyle got there – is one of the last to come over. He stands for a long time in front of Trocheck and doesn’t say anything. 

Trocheck stops what he’s doing. His hands still, but he doesn’t say anything to Olsen, just watches him through his lashes. Dark eyes focused and unblinking. 

Olsen takes a breath. His hands spread in the air and drop. “I’m sorry I wasn’t – ” 

“You’re here now,” Trocheck cuts him off. “That’s the only thing I care about.” 

That’s all it takes. It must be, because Olsen nods. He reaches out to give Trocheck’s shoulder a light shake. “It’s good to have you here.” 

The very last person to greet Trocheck is the captain. His visit to Kyle and Trocheck’s corner of the locker room is delayed, but it feels inevitable, even timed, like an echo, or the sweep of a lighthouse beam. “Troey,” Zanon says. His voice has this very careful cheer, every inch measured. He sits down next to Trocheck and puts his arm around him, tight. “Welcome back. How was Florida? How was the rest of your season?” 

As if Florida’s season weren’t written in the shadows on Trocheck’s face. 

Trocheck shrugs. “Good at the beginning. Great in the middle. Shitty at the end.” 

Zanon looks right at him, arm still around him, his grip on Trocheck’s arm tight enough that Kyle can see the way his fingers dig into his bicep. “Yeah. Yeah, sometimes that’s the way it goes.” 

There’s a question in it, Kyle thinks. In Zanon’s voice. In his posture. In his arm around Trocheck. 

Trocheck holds Zanon’s gaze, frozen for one long beat, and then he laughs. He smiles down at the ground. “Yeah, boss. I got you.” 

Zanon pats his back. He says, “Good.” And he walks away. 

Trocheck takes a long breath. Kyle counts the beats as he holds it, and then he blows it out, slow and measured. The line of his back straightens. “Alright, alright,” Trocheck says, louder, to no one in particular, or maybe just to the room at large. “Texas to close it out?” 

Tonight and Saturday – the last two games of the regular season – are against Texas. 

“We still hate Texas?” Trocheck asks. 

From across the room, Bricks laughs. “Hell yeah we still hate Texas.” 

Trocheck smiles. There’s something easier in it, but there’s mettle there, too. He looks left and right, like he’s re-settling into something. Blinks, and when he looks up, it’s with a sharp, determined focus. “Well alright then. Let’s go fucking get ‘em.” 

 

 

Trocheck scores a goal in each of his first two games back. 

Mancari says, “We call that pulling a Rau, now.” He winks. 

Trocheck looks at Kyle. 

“We don’t,” Kyle says. “We really, really don’t.” 

Trocheck snorts. He nods at Mancari. “Yeah, but his games we won. We lost both of mine. Goals don’t mean shit if you don’t win.” 

“Aw, take the congrats, Troey.” Mancari whips a towel at him before he heads off for the showers. 

Trocheck looks back at Kyle out of the corner of his eye. “Rau, Rau, Rau.” Trocheck shakes his head. His gaze has gone sharp and assessing in a way that Kyle’s started to get familiar with over the last few days, even if he’s still not sure what exactly Trocheck is measuring, or how exactly Kyle is falling short. “Minnesota nerds,” he says sadly. “Everywhere I go.” He pauses. “So, clearly you owe me a beer, since I had to put up with that.” 

Kyle glances back the way Mancari disappeared and then again at Trocheck. He’s surprised, because Trocheck always seems vaguely irritated with him, and not in any hurry to spend time together off the ice. “What? Now? Tonight?” 

Trocheck looks amused. “Naw, my shit’s still all over Howden’s apartment, if I don’t deal with it tonight, he’s gonna kill me. Call me next time you’re bored though.” 

 

 

Coach gives them Monday off, an extra rest day before playoffs. In their hotel room, Matheson rolls over onto his stomach and fixes Kyle with a significant look. “Hey.” 

Kyle glances up from his computer. “Hey.” 

“So.” 

There’s enough of a question pitched into Matheson’s voice that Kyle pushes the computer away and looks at him for real. 

Matheson’s face is lightly pink. “I was gonna Skype with my girlfriend tonight. And I was kinda hoping that I could, you know, get the room for a couple hours.” 

Kyle grins. “A couple hours? That’s ambitious.” 

“Fuck you, Rau.” He pitches a pillow at Kyle. 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Kyle catches the pillow and returns it with force. “Don’t worry, I’ll clear out.” 

 

 

That evening he heads down to the hotel pool. The sky is overcast but the air is warm, and Kyle rolls his pants up and dangles his feet in the water. The pool area is pretty rundown – a rock garden that’s overrun with weeds, cracked cement, and scattered pool chairs now bleached and faded. 

The night is noisy with a chorus of cicadas. There’s a breeze picking up, driving the yellow and gray clouds of a spring storm before it. He’s gonna have to go inside somewhere before too long. 

Kyle pushes his feet through the water, still warm from baking in the sun all day. And in the noisy quiet and the long shadows, the thing he keeps trying to not think about, and therefore thinking about, is calling Nick. 

He thinks about Matheson, upstairs with his long-distance girlfriend, using technology to make it work even though she’s back east. He thinks about what it would have been like if he and Nick had that kind of relationship. Kyle laughs. They would have been terrible at Skype. Both of them shy even on their best days – it would take them three hours just to get their pants off and by then someone would be asleep. 

He thinks about getting undressed in the dark next to Nick, always a race because the windows in their shitty apartment leaked like a sieve, and the room was always cold. He remembers bumping into each other in the dark, him or Nick hissing when they found each other’s bruises, and Nick sighing when they finally settled next to each other in bed. He remembers how Nick’s hands would be icy at first, but how his laugh was warm in response to Kyle’s grumbling. 

Sometimes Kyle had held Nick’s hands between his, breathed hot air over them before he let Nick skim them across his skin. Before he let Nick use his fingertips to trace Kyle’s lips, his cheekbones in that careful, soft way he always did. 

He hasn’t thought about Nick like this for a long time. He hasn’t let himself think about Nick like this for a long time. Kyle tilts his head to look up at the sky. These aren’t good thoughts to be having in public. These aren’t good thoughts to be having anywhere, actually. The kind of thoughts you have when you have too much time and not enough to fill it. The kind of thoughts you have when you’re alone. 

 

 

He doesn’t call Nick. He calls Trocheck. 

There are better reasons to go for a beer, sure. But there are certainly worse ones. 

“I’m trying to give Mather some space,” he says to Trocheck on the phone. And I need a distraction, so as not to think about Nick Bjugstad’s hands. Except that part he doesn’t say out loud. 

“I take it you don’t have a car?” Trocheck asks. 

“No.” 

“Your local watering hole it is, then.” 

He meets Kyle at the Applebee’s, and he pats the booth with a fond, familiar reverence. “Ah, so many memories of this place. Or, I should say, so many nights with maybe not so many memories.” 

They talk about hockey. And it’s easy, because it’s hockey, and they’re hockey players, and there’s always something. Trocheck’s hands flip through the air like switchblades as he talks about the Barons, who they’re up against in the playoffs. About Brossoit – “Or Bachman, if we’re lucky.” 

“Half of them are too old, and half of them are too shitty, so I think we stand a chance.” Trocheck reaches for his beer and shrugs. “Although, who the hell am I to say? I’m the shittiest NHLer on our roster.” 

Kyle squints at him. 

Trocheck tips his beer and lowers his voice, like he’s a giving away a secret. “Or, the best not-NHLer. Depending on how you look at it.” This grand pearl of wisdom delivered, he sits back and takes a long pull of beer. 

There are a million things Kyle wants to ask. Like, what’s it like playing in the NHL? And more specifically, what’s it like playing in Florida. And, even more specifically, did you properly appreciate playing with Nick Bjugstad. And, how _is_ Nick, anyway. What did he look like when you left. How did he sound. Is he okay. Did he say anything about me. 

Maybe that’s not such a good road to go down. Kyle cuts that spiral off mid-thought by taking a drink. He picks at the label. Instead he asks, “Is it hard? Going up and down?” 

Trocheck grins at him, slow and crooked, looking for the first time that night, like Kyle’s said something worth listening to. His purses his lips, thoughtful. “It is what it is. You don’t have a hell of a lot of control, and that can knock you down real quick – trust me, you can be the very best in one league and shit scraped off somebody’s boot in another. But, you just do your best every goddamn day and it works out. Or it doesn’t.” And he shrugs, like it was what it was, like his inadequacies were what they were there, but it was your fault if you couldn’t see past them. 

 

 

When Kyle lays down that night, he’s still thinking about Trocheck. About Trocheck’s eyes on him and his flickering smile. 

Kyle tucks one hand behind his head. He wants Vince Trocheck to know he was listening. He wants him to know Kyle is the sort of person who can actually get something out of those sorts of conversations. That Kyle’s really trying to make this whole hockey thing work. He wants Trocheck to know he’s working hard. 

He picks each one of these desires up and turns it over in his mind. He thinks about whether he might have a crush on Vince Trocheck – who has long, dark eyelashes and a heart-shaped face. Kyle drums his fingers over his chest. He doesn’t, he decides. And that’s a good thing. He doesn’t want to have to think about Trocheck the way he thinks about Nick or Leddy, like he’s up on a pedestal. Trocheck’s just a guy on his team. He’s done some things that Kyle wants to do, and he has some qualities Kyle would like to have. 

So it’s okay then, to be a little anxious, about wanting Trocheck to know he’s working for it. 

But they’re on the same team. So maybe, Kyle can do some things that Trocheck would like to be better at. And, Trocheck has a head start, but maybe they’re not that far apart. 

 

 

Kyle is scratched for the playoffs. 

It crawls and curdles under his skin. 

Heatley asks him, “You pissed?” 

Kyle has to fight to get air. It’s not a fair question. Like all the disappointment and anger in the whole world could ever be fit into one yes or no answer. Like the lump in Kyle’s throat might dissipate enough to speak. 

“Come on,” Heatley says. He drags it out, his voice is prodding, a low, mean tease. “You angry? You pissed off?” 

Kyle glares, putting every ounce of hatred, the feeling after every hit, after every loss, after every mistake into his look. Jaw clenched down to keep it from trembling. “Yes. Fuck you, yes.” 

He’s worried for a second, that he’s going to get into a fight with Dany fucking Heatley, but Heatley just smiles, looks satisfied. “Good.” He moves like he’s going to walk past Kyle, but he stops and leans in. “You’re not any better, or worse than you were yesterday. The only thing that’s changed is out here.” He points at the room, at the coach’s office, at the halls of the arena. At everywhere but Kyle. “And what they see doesn’t matter. People are always gonna see you how they wanna see you. Doesn’t matter if its true.” 

 

 

The trees outside the Days Inn are full of grackles. Hundreds of them, and every evening they jostle each other for space, fluttering over one another, trying to find a spot to settle. Kyle listens to their rusty chattering talk the sun down. They grow quiet as it gets dark; the whole world goes quieter. Minute by minute, the hum of the air conditioner seems louder. 

Kyle turns over, and turns over again. He looks at Matheson, passed out in his bed. Kyle sits up and nudges the curtains open just enough to look out at the dark, at the spill of a street lamp, now home to a confusion of moths. 

He watches their bodies bounce off each other. He rests his forehead against the glass. He wonders if this sleeplessness is the tradeoff for striving for something. Is it even worth trying, if you always have to live with the fear that you’ll never make it? 

Tonight Texas seems barbed and spiny and poisonous, a sucking, desert sort of dry. If he’s really the same as he was yesterday, and it doesn’t matter how good he is – if the only things that matter are out of his control – if he can work this hard and still be scratched then what is the goddamn point of trying? 

His anger is like a blister rising under his skin, boiling up in him. Why isn’t everyone else up at nights over this? If this is really how it is, why isn’t everyone else this scared and this angry all the time? Or, if they are, how the fuck are they hiding it? How does everyone else seem so fucking fine with this? His jaw is so tight his head aches. He wants to throw something; he wants to cry – because he did his best. He worked as hard as he possibly could. 

He knows that. He _knows_ it, down at the core of him, in his bones. 

He’s done his best here, and – 

Something clicks over in his mind, as sudden and complete as a hitting a light switch. 

He has it backwards. 

Kyle breathes with that for a second. It’s not that what he does doesn’t matter. It’s that what everyone else thinks doesn’t matter. Or, no – what they think matters, what his coach thinks _matters_. But not for who he is. Or how good he can be. 

And if it doesn’t matter if they think he’s not good enough, then it follows that it also doesn’t matter if they think he _is._

Kyle actually sits up a little straighter, looking around the room for witnesses – it feels that important. Nothing anyone says is going to matter if he doesn’t measure up in his own eyes. 

It’s so simple. And impossible. And perfect. He’s played the best he can in San Antonio. He knows it. And that’s good enough. 

Something is bubbling up in him. Something overwhelming. Something honest and terrifying and wonderful, and how much of a fool is he to have taken this long to get here? 

Does everyone know this? Did everyone always know this? His heart catches in throat. He wants to tell someone – but the only person in the room is Matheson, and Matheson’s sound asleep. Kyle wants to shout, and he pauses to consider that it’s incredibly inconvenient to have self-revelations in shared hotel rooms. And it’s late, too late to call anyone, but the magnitude of this is too huge to sit alone with. Part of him thinks it might be worth it to shake Matheson awake. Part of him wants to call Nick, call Curt, call _someone_ – 

Kyle pulls his laptop out and cracks it open. His hands almost shake. The green dot next to Curt’s name is like a godsend. He clicks, types, _hey. you up?_

There’s a pause, and then Curt answers him, _if I knew there was going to be so much reading in college I would have just gone to trade school. been a fucking plumber or something_

Kyle types, _the idea of you w the power to flood things is terrifying_

_I would be a fucking awesome plumber,_ appears almost immediately. _Fuck you._

Kyle smiles. His hands hover over the keyboard. _Okay, so. This is gonna take me a second, so hang on._

Curt responds, _?_

Kyle takes a breath and starts typing. When he finishes, he reads back over what he’s written. 

_I’ve been kind of freaking out ever since I got here. I don’t know, maybe a lot longer than that. I’ve been really unhappy. I kept waiting for somebody to tell me I made it, but I realized that was stupid. And it kind of sucks, but it’s also kind of great. I don’t know. I think maybe I’m starting to figure things out. Like if I can figure out what actually matters I can figure out how I actually want to be happy, not how I think I should be happy. I don’t know. Does that make any sense?_

He hits send before he can edit any of that out, before he can lose his nerve. 

The seconds tick past, and then Curt responds with a block of text that appears all at once: _I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet._ __

Kyle stares at the screen. _What the fuck,_ he replies. 

_Sylvia Plath,_ Curt writes, and then, _I’m in school now, suck it._

Kyle waits, since the screen tells him Curt is still typing. 

_It’s about a chick having a nervous breakdown. which is basically you._

_Hey_ , Kyle says. Because he sort of has to, even if it’s true. 

_:)_

Kyle smiles down at that smiley face, and in that moment he misses his brother so bad it’s like someone took all the oxygen out of the room, wants more than anything to be next to him, to reach over and punch his shoulder, and his absence is a sharp, fierce ache. 

Curt gets it, and will always get it, without Kyle ever having to explain. Kyle takes a deep breath. He can feel his heartbeat winding up until it’s a rapid patter. He types, _also I’m gay._

He hits send. 

There’s a pause before Curt responds, and when he does, all he writes is, _UGH._

Kyle goes still, warm, fuzzy feelings of a second ago evaporating. Of all the responses he imagined, this wasn’t one of them. 

A second message appears, _you’ve told me that like 3 times and each time you were too drunk to remember. call me when youre sober._

Curt logs off. 

Kyle is left staring at the screen, mouth hanging open. “Motherfucker,” he says aloud, louder than he meant to. 

He glances over, but Matheson sleeps on, oblivious. Still. Kyle frowns. He grabs his phone and the room key and heads out, walking quick to the lobby. The night clerk glances up when Kyle comes in, but Kyle ignores him. 

“I’m sober now,” he hisses into the phone when Curt picks up. 

“What?” 

“I said, I _am_ sober,” Kyle repeats. The clerk gives Kyle a sharp look and Kyle slinks further from the desk. 

“Oh.” Curt sounds surprised. 

“Yeah, _oh_ ,” Kyle snaps. “And now I’m trying to come out to you at – ” He has to glance at the phone. “ – fucking three in the morning, in the lobby of a fucking Days Inn in fucking San Antonio.” The clerk is full on staring at him now. Kyle turns his back. “I’m trying to tell you I’m gay and you said ‘ _ugh’._ ” 

“I only said _ugh_ because I thought we having, like, a heart-to-heart and then it turned out you were just drunk – ” 

“I’m _not_ drunk – ” 

“Well I know that _now_.” Curt’s voice has gone all pissy. He sighs and Kyle can picture the exact, aggrieved face he’s making. “Okay. Do it again.” 

Kyle frowns. “What? No. That’s not how it works. I’m not coming out to you again.” 

“Come on. You humor me by coming out again, and I’ll humor you by not saying _ugh.”_ He pauses. “Or _duh,_ for that matter.” 

Curt is infuriating. Kyle contemplates ignoring him. Kyle contemplates hanging up. Kyle contemplates pretending from here on out that he was raised by wolves and has never met anyone else named Rau. “Fine.” He pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a breath. “Curt, I’m gay.” 

Curt doesn’t laugh. Curt doesn’t make a joke. Curt says, “Kyle, you’re my brother. I love you. Did you really think I was gonna say anything else?” 

There are tears, all the sudden, at the corner of his eyes. Kyle tries to swallow around the lump in his throat. “No. But – thanks for telling me anyway.” 

“I love you,” Curt says. “I wish you loved you half as much as I love you.” 

It’s getting a little hard to see and a lot hard to talk. “I’m trying. I’m really trying.” 

 

 

The team drops the first two games of the playoffs, and Kyle is put in for the elimination game. 

He plays well. He gets chances. 

They still lose. Another league, another team, another season over. 

It’s a strange feeling – to have joined something so close to the end of its lifetime, to bleed into it, and have it bleed into you, and at the end be left with the ache of wanting to have known it longer. 

Zanon talks with some of them after. “I know it sucks, but you have to see as something to build on. You’re always building. You’re always getting stronger. You’re growing.” 

Then he buys them all a shot. 

The end hurts. But something in him feels torn open to warmth. Like if he looked down, he could see his own guts laid bare. He think about their team, shoulder to shoulder, bonds built on honest effort, and for a moment it’s like that connection has become startlingly visible, hanging like resonant cords in the air of the bar. He thinks it’ll hurt less tomorrow, and he’s already thinking about next season. And all of it seems spread out before him, open and unfolding. 

Texas, he thinks. As good a place as any to grow up. 

 

 

* * *

 

3\. Soon (Summer in Florida) 

It takes him forever to get to Florida. Or maybe it doesn't take much time at all. Maybe it's all a matter of perspective. 

It's not summer when he gets there, or maybe it is. But it feels like it. The permanent summer of a world lit by a tropical sun. The kind of heat that sinks down into you, marinates the very marrow or your bones. 

Vince Trocheck gets him from the airport, and Kyle is unsurprised at who is, and who isn’t, there to pick him up. 

Trocheck plays the music in his car loud, but at the end of the trip, right before he drops Kyle at his hotel, he cuts the volume, pushes his sunglasses up on top of his head, and looks Kyle right in the eye. “Life is short, so love the one you got.” He enunciates each word, with a slow, ridiculous sincerity. “Cause you might get run over, or you might get shot.” 

Vince Trocheck can be kind of an asshole, and he sometimes doesn’t work as hard as he should. But he’s also bought Kyle beers in three states and counting, managed to wedge himself into the Florida lineup, and can recite the entirety of _We Didn’t Start the Fire_ a cappella, so Kyle guesses if there’s something to be said about appreciating where he is via song lyrics, Trocheck’s probably the guy to say it. And he might be worth listening to. Kyle still frowns at him. It’s the principle of the thing. “Did you just quote the Offspring at me?” 

“Sublime.” Trocheck lets his sunglasses drop back into place. “I’m on a 90s kick. Be grateful – it took Katy Perry to get through to Bjuggy.” 

Kyle stares at him, but all he can see is himself, reflected back in those mirrored lenses. 

Trocheck leaves him on the curb, under the shade of a palm tree, with a list of a few more things to straighten out. 

 

 

Nick approaches him after practice. The same calm slope to his shoulders that Kyle remembers, but a look on his face like he’s bracing for something. “I was wondering if you had time to go to dinner?” 

Kyle’s been in the state for less than 24 hours, is living out of a suitcase, and knows his way to exactly nowhere but the rink. Kyle’s got nothing but time. 

 

 

They go out to dinner at a place with a view of the canal. Nick says it’s casual, but there are still boats in view that cost more than Kyle’s going to make that year. 

By mutual, unspoken decision, they don’t try to talk about anything until the first round of beers come, and even then, Nick picks at the label, tracing his fingers through the condensation, and won’t quite look at Kyle. 

“You uh,” Kyle clears his throat. “You bought a house, I heard?” 

Nick looks up, grateful. “Yeah, it’s – ” He waves vaguely behind him. “Sort of back that way. It’s great. It’s nice. I think it’s nice, anyway. You should come see it sometime – ” He stops and blinks, like he’s running that last part back through his head. “I mean, I could host a thing or something. I probably should. I haven’t yet.” 

Kyle nods. “Yeah. That sounds great.” 

“Right.” Nick looks down again. Kyle watches his hands move on the table, and with Nick’s eyes lowered, Kyle looks at his face. At the freckles scattered across his skin. At the red of his lip, caught between teeth. 

“Look,” Nick says. “I just wanted to make sure that we’re gonna be okay. On the same team and all. That you’re okay, and that the team – you know.” Nick trails off. He takes a breath. “And I just – I just wanted to say that I want you to be happy and successful here, regardless of whatever we are. Or aren’t.” 

When he looks up, his eyes seem very blue, and very focused on Kyle. 

Kyle wants to crawl into a hole and die. Or chug this beer and then die. Nick Bjugstad is the nicest person Kyle has ever met, is just trying to do the right thing, and Kyle’s making him feel cautious and awkward in his own goddamn city. Dying would be too easy, though. Instead, Kyle has to fix this. “I’m fine with – obviously I’m fine with being on the same team. I’m – ” Kyle breathes in for a slow count and waits until he feels settled. He looks Nick in the eye. “I’m excited to be here. I want to do my best here, and help the team, and I’m excited to play with you again.” 

Nick smiles, slow and sort of uneven. “I’m excited about that, too. I’m really happy you’re here.” 

If Nick keeps smiling like that, Kyle's going to forget how to breathe. 

Kyle orders something he instantly forgets the name of and can’t quite taste, but he is aware of exactly how many inches are between him and Nick. Like Nick is less a person than he is a gravitational pull, like he’s the north star Kyle is set to pivot around. 

The whole evening as it slips past leaves an ache in his chest that won’t fade. And when Nick drives him back to the hotel, the truck is all filled up with words Kyle can’t quite say. 

Nick stops in front of the entrance. “Okay,” he says. 

“Yeah.” Nick’s face is hard to look away from. “Thanks for – ” 

Nick waves it off. “Of course.” 

Kyle hasn’t moved. The valets by the entrance are starting to eye them. “I should – ” Kyle gestures toward the doors. 

“Right.” Nick seems like he’s breathing too fast. Or maybe that’s just Kyle. Maybe Kyle’s imagining that. 

“Okay.” Kyle gets out of the truck, very slow. He closes the door behind him. He lifts a hand. 

Nick lifts his. 

Kyle turns and walks into the hotel, blast of cold air hitting his face. He blows out a long breath. It’s about twenty steps to the bank of elevators. He walks with hands clenched the whole way. 

In the elevator, he rests his head against the paneling. He closes his eyes. 

The doors ding open. 

Kyle doesn’t move. Kyle can’t breathe. Kyle may never breathe again. He pulls out his phone. _I missed you,_ he sends. _I missed you so fucking much. I missed you every single day._

The seconds before Nick responds are a lifetime. _I’m still in the driveway._ And a beat later, _I think the valets are starting to get pissed at me, though._

_Stall them._ Kyle hits the elevator’s down arrow. 

It takes a lot of self-control not to run through the lobby. But he does half-launch himself back into the truck, and the door is barely shut behind him before he’s reaching for Nick. 

Nick meets him halfway. His mouth on Kyle’s mouth, his hands holding Kyle’s face with such perfect care that Kyle might break right open. 

“I missed you. I missed you,” Kyle says, when he pulls back for air. 

Nick’s breathing with these shaky, raspy sounds. His arms tighten around Kyle, like he could pull him right across the gear shift. Right against him. “We should – ” His grip loosens, but he’s still breathing hard. Still flushed. 

He glances out the window, and Kyle follows his gaze. Both valets are pointedly not looking. 

“You wanna show me your house?” Kyle asks. 

“Yes.” Nick’s smile is one he recognizes. “Very much.” 

 

 

They fumble in the dark, until they remember there’s no reason not to turn on the light; there’s no reason to rush. 

The house is familiar in the ways Nick is familiar. Kyle thinks, there will be shoes on the floor, kicked to one side of the door – and there are. Kyle thinks, the kitchen will be untouched, pristine – and it is. Kyle thinks, there will be laundry piled in the bedroom, and the bed will be unmade. 

Nick eases him back against those rucked and twisted sheets. 

“Okay?” He asks. His voice is rough. Nick is leaning over him, hovering over him. 

Kyle has missed his mouth. Kyle has missed his skin. Kyle has missed his grip and his strength and his focus. He draws Nick’s face back down to his. 

Nick’s skin is heated, still pale enough to show its flush. His shoulders are broader than Kyle remembers, but his voice still gets hoarse when he’s close. And nothing’s changed about the way he looks at Kyle after, like something vivid and dazzling. 

 

 

Nick stays tucked up behind him, one arm tight around him, presses his mouth to Kyle’s neck, his jaw, anything he can reach. 

Kyle has his fingers threaded through Nick’s. It’s easier to be honest in the dark, but it’s still not easy. “I hated that you left. It hurt so much when you left.” 

Nick’s hand tightens on his. His face presses into Kyle’s skin. 

“And.” Kyle worries at the pillowcase. “I spent so much time and energy thinking about how I wasn’t as good as you – ” 

Nick starts to shift. “Kyle – ” 

“I know.” Kyle twists so he can look at Nick. “I had a lot of shit to work out. I’m sorry.” 

Nick watches him with a close, careful attention that makes Kyle’s heart race. It’s so hard to be seen like this; it’s so much to be splayed open and known. Nick touches his face, closes his eyes and rests his forehead against Kyle’s. “Can we just – start again here?” 

“I may not always be up here,” Kyle says. 

Nick frowns. “You can’t think like that.” 

“I gotta think like that.” Kyle meets his eyes, holds his gaze. “But I’m okay with that. I’m working, and it’ll work out.” 

“Okay.” Nick winds his arms back around Kyle. “But when you’re up, you’ll always have a place right here. If you want it. And if you aren’t, we’ll make that work, too. We’re smart. I believe in our ability to figure it out.” 

There is a particular warmth that seeps into him, every time Nick looks at him like that. It seems so enormous, what he’s offering Kyle. It seems impossible that Kyle should get this lucky. “You really want to?” 

Nick rolls his eyes. “I take back what I said about you being smart.” He’s grinning, though. He looks happy. “But – it’s worth trying, isn’t it? I think we’re worth trying.” 

He holds onto Kyle like he means it. 

 

 

Tomorrow, Kyle will wake up and they’ll be together, and it won’t be perfect, but it will be a start. 

Tomorrow, Kyle will wake up doing the only thing he can: doing his best, every day. 

Tomorrow, Kyle will wake up to the promise and the charm that is every new season. 

 

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Some](http://www.startribune.com/success-with-u-eases-separation/133584428/)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> [fun Rau](http://blog.carlosgonzalezphoto.com/2010/11/16/kyle-rau-eden-prairie-hockey-should-i-stay-or-should-i-go/)
> 
>  
> 
> [links](http://www.mndaily.com/sports/mens-hockey/2014/04/08/rau-keeps-quiet-amid-ice-success)
> 
> [to get](http://m.startribune.com/sports/gophers/254056591.html)
> 
>  
> 
> [you started](http://www.mnhockeyhub.com/news_article/show/113500-ready-for-anything)


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